


Bereghinya

by Carlyn (Carlyn7865)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 05:07:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5855326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carlyn7865/pseuds/Carlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Daniel at an emotional low point following his failure to bring Sha’re back from Abydos, Jack arranges an easy mission to help Daniel regain his balance. As they soon learn, Jack is not the only one watching out for Daniel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bereghinya

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the gen zine, A Friend in Need. Thanks to Cheryl for the beta. Any mistakes you find are mine, all mine.

“You’re seriously going to request this assignment?” Daniel's fingers tightened slightly in anticipation, creasing the edges of the mission summary Jack had brought him. Eyes wide in incredulity—and hope—followed the lanky frame of his team leader as Jack strode evenly before the bookshelves lining the wall behind his desk.

Jack shrugged casually. “Sure, why not. Warm sunny days, cool breezy nights. The UAV didn’t detect anyone who might object to our taking a look around. Carter says this temple or whatever is right next to a big lake. Apparently the water’s a little choppy but that shouldn’t interfere with my plan to get in some fishing. I'm about due a vacation.”

“It wouldn’t really be a vacation, though, would it? You’d still have duties—”

“Watching you and Carter play in the dirt. Well, my guess is you’ll spend most of your time in those ruins, but still, not a hardship.” Jack flicked his hand as if tossing the very idea away. He paused in his pacing and reached for a particularly fragile clay pot perched at eye level.  
  
“Jack,” Daniel automatically cautioned, frowning discouragement. The reprimand had the desired effect, though Jack pouted faintly as his hand dropped to his side. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure, Daniel.” Meandering to the work table in the center of the room, Jack fingered the archaeologist’s tools Daniel had been using in his inspection of the stone tablet laying in pieces between them. Once he’d touched each in turn, he raised a searching gaze to his friend’s face. “I think we can all do with a mission where the most harmful thing we experience is a little sunburn.”

Eyes dropping from his friend’s too solicitous gaze, Daniel nodded. SG-1 had had a rough year so far. They'd all been subjected to false imprisonment on Hadante and forced to relive their most painful memories by the Game Keeper. Sam had suffered through her blending with Jolinar, benign though it was, and suffered even more grievously in the aftermath of Jolinar's death. Teal'c had almost died saving his son, and Jack got skewered and pinned to the wall by an alien probe. And Daniel... well, he'd nearly let his teammates work to death in a naquadah mine while he'd dallied with the alien princess who'd deliberately addicted him to a sarcophagus.

None of that compared to his most recent failure, however: his inability to rescue Sha're from the nightmare of her possession by Amaunet. At least her newborn son was safe with Kasuf.

“Daniel.”

Startled from his musings, Daniel looked up, producing a self-effacing grin. “Sorry.”

“Mind left the building for a second?” The half-amused smirk did nothing to mask the earnest concern in Jack’s eyes.

“Guess so,” Daniel sighed.

Jack’s head bobbed meaningfully. “I’ll go talk to Hammond.”

“’Kay,” Daniel acknowledged, feeling oddly chastised by the declaration.

~oOo~

"Carter, where the hell is this place? We've been tramping through these woods for two hours." Gripping his MP-5 like a staff, Jack wrestled aside a low hanging branch, holding it in place until the rest of his team got by.

"The UAV showed a structure approximately twelve klicks due east of the Stargate. We should be coming up on it any time now."

"Daniel," Jack called sharply, noting the archaeologist trying to slip ahead of the pack.

Daniel stopped dead in his tracks. Turning, he offered Jack a chagrined grimace even as he heaved a harried sigh and extended his arm in invitation for Jack to precede him.

"You don't take point," Jack reminded him as he passed.

"Sam said it's right up there."

"And you are right back there." Scarred brow surging expectantly, Jack stood his ground until Daniel marched into place between Carter and Teal'c.

"The UAV didn't detect anything that might be dangerous," Daniel protested as they began to move again. "No signs of inhabitants, no energy readings to indicate weapons..."

"The UAV is not omniscient."

"Neither are you, but you still always insist there's danger ahead."

"And," Jack stressed, "if you review our past missions, you'll find that I was almost always right. What's your big hurry, anyway? Those ruins aren't going anywhere."

"Daniel Jackson often becomes animated as we near our objective, O'Neill," Teal'c opined, his tone completely void of criticism. "Have you not noticed this behavior previously?"

"Yeah, too damn many times. And every time he acts on it, he ends up in trouble. He's got to learn to suppress his curiosity or whatever—"

" _He_ can hear every word you're saying," Daniel complained.

"That's not quite fair, sir," Carter piped up in Daniel's defense. "Daniel is a scientist. He's inherently curious. You can't just turn that off."

"You do."

"No, sir, I don't. My military training allows me to temper it with the need for safety, but I'm just as susceptible to the overwhelming excitement of exploration as Daniel is. For instance, my experiments on that orb we brought back from P5C-353."

"Ugh," Jack groaned. "Don't remind me. I can't believe I agreed to allow two scientists on the team. As if one isn't bad enough."

"Do you not believe SG-1 in its current formation is an efficient unit, O'Neill?"

"I didn't say that. Don't go puttin' words in my mouth."

"I did not. In fact, I put them in my mouth."

Daniel shared a chuckle with Carter, twin bells, one slightly deeper in tone. "No, Teal'c, what Jack means is—"

"Save it, Daniel," Jack cut him off. "The forest is thinning. Looks like we've finally reached our destination."

~oOo~

Sam palmed the barrel of her automatic rifle as, before her, the colonel sidled his way through the last few massive trunks baring their view of the lake. Moving cautiously toward the clearing, his weapon leading the way, O'Neill stopped just inside the cover of the trees.

"Carter, you and Daniel wait here. Teal'c, go around the other side of the tree line and check it out."

Gripping Daniel's arm to move him out of Teal'c's way, Sam nodded affirmation of the order. Once they'd begun their assessment of the area, she perched on the edge of the clearing, back against a tree, and watched the colonel and Teal'c in turn, ready to render assistance, if necessary. A breeze off the lake stirred her hair, the surrounding leaves setting up a quiet rustle.

Behind her, Daniel shuffled a foot against the turf, straining against their CO's verbal restriction. Chancing a quick glance his way, Sam smiled knowingly at his look of longing, aimed at the solitary stone building just out of his reach.

Sam scanned the structure, checking for signs of movement. Surprisingly intact, the simple, block-like building stood very near the center of the beach. It was surrounded by a low wall, constructed of neat rows of stone. Shooting a quick look towards the gently churning water, Sam estimated that the structure's location would protect it from even the highest storm surge.

She glanced off to her right, to an incongruous stand of trees. Seemingly plopped down on the beach a dozen kilometers from the building, the breeze animated their ample foliage in a sinuous dance.

Amidst the sounds of lapping water and whispering leaves, Daniel huffed impatiently.

Sighing in sympathy, Sam murmured over her shoulder, "Look, but don't touch. I think that's the hardest thing we do in this job."

Daniel moved forward, and Sam automatically threw up an elbow to keep him behind the tree line. "I'm glad you get it," he said, the irony of her instinctual move to block him clearly lost in his focus on the ruins. "I sometimes think Jack believes I'm deliberately belligerent when it comes to these things."

"You mean you're not?" Sam teased.

"No... well, not always," Daniel hedged with a guilty shrug.

Sam let the confession lie, untouched, her attention on the colonel and Teal'c, who had completed their inspection of the tree line and were now looking over the building on the beach.  
  
Daniel shifted again then said quietly, "You don't think Jack was serious, do you? About regretting having two scientists on the team?"

Taken aback by his melancholy tone, Sam pushed herself off the tree. Waving acknowledgement of O'Neill's signal to proceed, she turned to face Daniel, her expression frank. "That's not really an accurate paraphrase, and, no, I don't think he was serious at all. The colonel was just..." She shrugged. "...being the colonel. It was just another one of his bad-tempered, ill-advised quips."

Though he nodded agreement, Daniel looked unconvinced.

"Why would you think he was serious?" Sam was compelled to ask.

"I don't know. Maybe because I've been a lot of trouble lately."

"No more than usual," Sam wisecracked, immediately adding, "Sorry," when Daniel's frown deepened.

"I keep screwing up. I'm just so much dead weight for you guys to carry."

"Daniel, that's not true. We all have our flaws. How many times did I reverse my plan of attack on the organism that had the colonel trapped in the gate room? He could just as easily have been talking about me."

"No, I don't think so. You may be a scientist, but you're also military."

"Daniel, you heard his objection to Teal'c's remark. I'm sure the colonel has no regrets about either of us."

"You two holding a Mensa convention back here?"

Sam jolted, spinning awkwardly to face her CO as he approached.

O'Neill's mouth quirked to one side. "What's the hold up? Daniel, I practically had to tackle you to keep you from those ruins earlier, now you're dragging your feet? What gives?"

Slipping around Sam, Daniel met his team leader's eye. "You didn't have to tackle me, Jack. I stopped as soon as you ordered me to." He sent Sam a rueful smile before stomping into the clearing.

Eyebrow surging, the colonel watched him for a moment. He gestured for Teal'c to keep an eye on him before turning on Carter. "What the hell was that?"

Sam leaned a bit to her right to get a good line of sight on Daniel. Though his gait was determined, his hunched shoulders bespoke a distinct lack of self-assurance. She sighed. "Something you said apparently hit him the wrong way."

"Something I said? He's been back here with you for the last ten minutes."

"Yes, sir, dwelling on your jest about too many scientists on your team."

"Too many... oh, fercryinout loud. He took that personally?"

Sam dropped her gaze to her rifle, considering whether she should share Daniel's confession with her team leader or talk to Daniel some more in private.

The colonel took the decision out of her hands. "Out with it, Carter."

Stiffening automatically, Sam snapped her eyes to his. "For some reason Daniel believes he's a burden on us. He expressed concern that he's recently caused you a lot of inconvenience."

"No more than usual."

Sam winced, the inappropriateness of that blithe response smacking her in hindsight as painfully as a physical blow. "I made the same joke to Daniel. He wasn't amused." Her gaze fell away from him again. Spying a smudge on the butt of her weapon, she thumbed it away, distracting herself with the oddly calming ritual. "Sir, I don't know if you've noticed—"

"I have."

She glanced up. "You have?"

"Noticed that Daniel's self confidence has taken a hit? Yeah, Carter, I noticed. I think he's having nightmares about that damn sarcophagus again, too."

"Why would you think that?"

"He apologized again the other day for leaving us in that mine. It's been eight months since that happened."

"He beat the addiction, and he's far too cognizant of its damaging effects to ever be tempted to use a sarcophagus again. He suffered pretty horrendously, both physically and mentally."

"I was there, Carter."  
  
"Yes, sir," she replied apologetically. "The point is, even if he is dreaming about his sarcophagus addiction, the basis of those dreams is more likely the recent events on Abydos: having to let Sha're go with Apophis when he was so close to rescuing her. Knowing Daniel, he's probably feeling like he abandoned his wife the way he did us on P3R-636. It's hardly surprising that he's revisiting a mission he himself has called his greatest failure."

Snatching his cap from his head, O'Neill fell back against a tree and scraped his fingertips over his scalp. "It certainly didn't help him, getting his wife as far as the 'gate on Abydos, literally six steps from home, only to have her torn from his grasp again. Not to mention the whole delivering Apophis's baby thing." He slapped the hat back on. "Something like that would shake even Teal'c's confidence."

"I was surprised to hear him say he wasn't alright. Daniel almost never admits to being anything less than fine."

"That was a big giveaway to me, too. He didn't even try to pull one over on Fraiser in the post mission exam."

Brow heavy with worry, Sam scrutinized their civilian teammate as he circled the ruins. "He did say he'd be okay eventually."

"He will. Losing Sha're again has really knocked him for a loop, but I trust that, before too long, he'll once again be that mega-geeky pain-in-the-ass we all know and love. In the meantime, Hammond's agreed to a few missions like this one to help him get back on his feet."

"Yes, sir. I have to confess, I'm looking forward to a few days of nothing more strenuous than exploring the flora and fauna."

At his invitation, Sam moved past the colonel, his muttered, "Scientists," pulling a small smile from her.

~oOo~

"This is kinda cool, huh? Almost like being stranded on a desert island."

Teal'c regarded his team leader, eyebrow quivering inquisitively. O'Neill marched around the periphery, just outside the shadow cast by the copse of trees under which they had set up camp. Equidistant from the line of forest behind them and the vast body of water before, it seemed as though the small grouping had sprung up on the otherwise barren lake shore solely for their convenience.

"Well," Captain Carter replied, her bold tone presaging argument," if it were really a desert island, these trees would be tropical, but I see your point, sir. It does kind of look as though we've been cast up on an island. One surrounded by sandy soil instead of water."

O'Neill smirked disapprovingly. "You've already determined the soil is sandy? What did you do, sneak in a little soil analysis while you were pitching the tents?"

"It's simple observation, sir. See this line of black particles?"

Teal'c strained his neck to find the thin layer of darker soil his teammate pointed out. He marveled at the way the indicated portion of ground reflected the sun's illumination, transforming it into a blanket of shimmering charcoal.

"Since this is fresh water, my initial thought is they’re magnetite or something similar, like the black sand that sometimes shows up on the shores of Lake Michigan."

"Ah, yes. I know it well."

"But I'm not totally ruling out the possibility that they're lava fragments."

"Lava? As in volcano?"

"Yes, sir. Black sand is produced when lava flows into the sea. The water cools it instantly and the molten rock shatters into tiny fragments. The wave action from the water erodes it further then casts it up on the beach."

"Doesn't the fact that there's no volcano or a sea anywhere around kinda spoil that theory?"

"Not if, in the distant past, this lake was part of an ocean inlet which, subsequent to an eruption, has been cut off from the sea by lava flow. I'll know more once I've had a chance to study the soil."

"Can't wait." O'Neill flashed a disingenuous smile.

"Yes, sir. The results should prove interesting."

Rolling his eyes at her, O'Neill looked out over the unsettled lake, eyes narrowed as though looking for something just beyond the range of his vision. “By the way, you might want to do a little research into open water observations. This qualifies as more than a little choppy.”

Teal’c followed his team leader’s line of sight. The surface of the lake, rolling serenely when they’d set up camp, had begun to undulate in earnest. Mounds of water surged upward, breaking into splashes of white, as though an invisible force had sheared the tops off of them. Propelled by the water’s motion, waves a half meter in height raced towards the beach, one having barely enough time to tag the land and retreat before its successor crawled in over it.

“Yes, sir. My guess is whatever force has stirred up the water has increased in intensity.”

“What may have caused such a disturbance?” Teal’c wondered.

“Without a thorough survey of the forces that affect this particular lake, I’d have to extrapolate from what I know of those things that influence lakes on earth.” She glanced upward, to the rustling leaves above them. “I don’t think this wind is strong enough to move the water to this extent. More likely there’s a storm further out on the lake.”

“Would we not have visual confirmation of a storm of such magnitude?”

“Not necessarily. The UAV data indicates this lake is hundreds of kilometers across. Hopefully, the storm is moving parallel to our position and we’ll never see it,” she added, almost as an afterthought.  
  
“Well, let’s keep an eye on that, shall we?” O’Neill suggested. He turned to Teal'c. "You about finished with that fire pit?"

Teal'c placed the final stone in the ring designed to protect the local vegetation. "I am."

"Why don't you go see how Daniel's doing?" His hands occupied with unloading his pack, O'Neill stabbed at the distant ruins with his chin.

Turning, Teal'c made out his friend's boonie just above the line of broken stones that served as a wall around the nondescript block structure. His back to them, Daniel Jackson appeared to be on his knees, bent over to inspect something that lay hidden from Teal's view between the wall and the small stone building.

Bowing ascent, Teal'c rose smoothly and, snagging his staff weapon as he passed the trees, started towards their fourth team member.

As he approached, the archaeologist looked up from a square stone pillar, approximately one meter in height. "Teal'c," he greeted, sitting back on his haunches. "Jack send you to check up on me?"

"I am to inquire how you are doing," Teal'c divulged. "I believe O'Neill wishes to learn whether you require assistance."

Casting an eye across the sand, Daniel grinned, but there was no warmth behind it. "Yes, I'll bet he does." He tore his gaze away from their team leader and crooked a finger at Teal'c, inviting the Jaffa to a spot beside him. "Look at this."

There was an opening in the wall a few meters to his left, but Teal'c chose to step over the barrier, his long legs allowing for adequate clearance. He leaned his staff against the outside of the building and came silently to his knees beside his friend.

Brushing a bit of loose dirt from the stone face to reveal what looked like a series of shallow scratches, Daniel pointed them out with the handle of his brush.

Teal'c canted his head and studied the abrasions. "What is the significance of these markings?"

"I have no idea." Daniel glared mildly at the column as though willing it to reveal its secret to him. "Their design is precise; too much so to be written off as random scouring by the wind or wild animals. There are similar impressions inside." He shot a thumb at the building.

"You believe it is a language." It was a statement, not a question. They had had this conversation on previous occasions.

"Could be. Chances are I'll never learn what any of it says, but just the discovery is exciting."

Bowing his head in acknowledgment, Teal'c noted a foreign object protruding from the far side of the pillar. He moved to his left and instantly identified it as a small metal ring.

"I'm guessing that was used to bind someone to the post," Daniel tendered unsolicited. "A form of punishment or a means to restrain someone facing punishment. Or it may have been used to bind an animal or even a human for sacrifice."

Twisting his head further, Teal’c made note of a design carved into the stone: two interlocking circles. “This emblem is significantly different from the others.”

“Yeah, it’s obviously a symbol of some kind, but there’s no way to know if it means anything specific.”

“What is your impression of this structure?"

"Well," Daniel grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. "It's constructed of irregular blocks of something similar to sandstone, cut not molded. That suggests there's a quarry here somewhere, though it wouldn't necessarily have to be close by. The builders of Stonehenge on Earth—"

"Have you determined its age?" Teal'c inquired quickly, knowing his friend's verbal meanderings could take them far afield.  
  
"Not yet." Daniel said, showing no sign of irritation at being cut off. "Though I have to say it's in remarkably good shape given that it's sitting on a windy lakeshore. I suppose that ridge would protect it somewhat." He gestured to a ragged outcropping that extended from the far edge of the forest into the water. Turning around, he ran a sullen eye over the low stone barrier surrounding the structure. "It's certainly fared better than this wall. It's not surprising, of course, given that they built the wall using smaller stones held together with what looks like a mud cement, while the building is constructed of much larger stone blocks cut to fit snuggly together. It's possible too, that the wall predates the structure. This area could have been set off for worship long before they found a need for the building."

"You have determined this area was reserved for worship?"

Daniel frowned. "I haven't determined anything. Religious significance is just one theory I'm playing with. For all I know, they used this building for changing into beachwear."

"Who is this ‘they’ you speak of, Daniel Jackson?"

"What? Oh. They. The people who built these structures."

"We have seen no signs of inhabitants, nor did the UAV detect any."

"The UAV didn't cover the entire planet. Clearly, someone was here once. Maybe they're migratory. Maybe they've gone somewhere through the 'gate. Maybe they were taken."

"Or maybe they're in hiding, waiting to jump us in our sleep."

As one, Daniel and Teal'c turned to find O'Neill strolling their way. Teal'c raised an intrigued brow at their team leader's theory. Daniel's brow plummeted, sitting low and unhappy over the bridge of his nose.

"Or maybe," he countered, "they've gone into hiding because four complete strangers, bearing what are clearly dangerous weapons, have marched uninvited into their territory. There's no reason to assume they're hostile."

O’Neill bristled at the contentious tone. "First of all, I always assume they're hostile, until they prove me wrong. And secondly, why are you so vehemently defending someone whose existence you haven't even proven yet?"

Daniel opened his mouth and inhaled as though to respond, his chest puffed out in challenge. Almost immediately, the breath gushed out of him and with it, his assertiveness.

"Come on. Lunch is ready." Without another word, O'Neill spun and walked back towards camp.

The wind shifted, and Teal'c sniffed responsively as the aroma of reconstituted Earth cuisine teased his nostrils. He turned to Daniel, who stared after their team leader, forehead drawn taut.

Wondering if the source of his friend's apparent distress was the headache which often plagued him when he worked long hours scouring flat surfaces for writing, Teal'c offered what he believed to be the perfect remedy. "Come, Daniel Jackson," he said, ushering his friend forward with a hand against his back. "You require nourishment if you are to solve the mystery of your lost inhabitants."

His troubled look slowly dissolving, Daniel smiled faintly. "I'm not sure even real beef stew would help, but I appreciate the vote of confidence." Picking up his pack, he tucked his brush into one of the pockets and headed for the break in the wall.

Frowning at the dispirited set of his friend's shoulders, Teal'c silently followed.

~oOo~

Cognizant of the prone figure already occupying the tent, Jack laid his MP-5 on the ground against the canvas wall and crawled in, zipping the shelter closed behind him. As usual, he'd taken first watch, wholly alert for any sign of danger in spite of the weariness that generally accompanied a day full of physical labor. Especially so, after his recent conversation with Daniel.

As he shrugged out of his vest and jacket, Jack glanced at his tent mate. A few wisps of Daniel's long hair extended through the opening of his sleeping bag, the only part of him visible. Jack shook his head, wondering as he always did when he found Daniel burrowed beneath the heavy cover, how his archaeologist kept from suffocating.

A twinge in his left knee precipitated a muttered curse and Jack's half-amused grin turned into a grimace, a mixture of pain and chagrin. Holding his breath, he watched Daniel, expecting at any moment the archaeologist would growl his objection to being wakened by the noise. When after a count of ten Daniel hadn't moved, Jack relaxed. Quickly shucking his pants, he climbed into his sleeping bag.

On the cusp of sleep, an all too-familiar tingling at the back of his neck brought him back to full awareness. He lay quietly, waiting for a repetition of whatever had set off his internal warning system. Then he heard it. Beneath his thick layer of bedding, Daniel was mumbling. Jack strained his ears, capable of picking up the stir of leaves three hundred paces away, but the sleeping bag made it impossible to accurately decipher what he was hearing.

It wasn't the first time Daniel had talked in his sleep; his tumultuous past made him prone to nightmares. Usually, Jack let him ride them out, a silent sentry alert for any sign of undue stress.

That sign manifested in the form of restive kicking. Pushing himself onto his elbow, Jack cautiously peeled back the open end of the sleeping bag. Daniel lay on his side, his face turned into his pillow. Still, without the muffling effect of the heavy cover, his voice grew louder, more distinct.

"Who? Sha're?" he whispered urgently. "Wait!"

Jack groaned objectionably on his friend's behalf. "Damn it, not again. Can't he have one night where he doesn't relive his wife's possession by the damn Goa'uld?" He settled a comforting hand on Daniel's shoulder.

Jerking away from the touch, Daniel rolled onto his back. "I'm coming!" he called. His face, damp with sweat, contorted grossly, a mask of misery. "Wait for me!"

With a surprised shout, Jack fell over backward as Daniel abruptly surged upward. "Okay, this qualifies as stressful," he decreed. Quickly kicking out of his sleeping bag, he knelt beside Daniel.

Seated in the middle of his bedroll, Daniel pushed furiously at the folds of material wrapped around his legs. "No! Let me go! My friends need me! I can't stay with you!" He began pounding a fist against the outside of his thigh.

Suddenly, the other swung in Jack's direction, and he flattened himself against the floor of the tent, his cat-like reflexes the only thing saving him from a pummeling.

"Sir!"

Having no attention to spare for his 2IC, afraid to take his eyes off Daniel for a second, Jack yelled over his shoulder. "Carter, he's having a nightmare!" Waiting until the furiously flailing hand began again to work on the sleeping bag that had Daniel trapped, Jack climbed to his knees and pinned Daniel's wrists to his lap.

''No!"

Daniel bucked. A knee caught Jack in the side, forcing a grunt from him. Resolutely firming his grip, he barked, "Carter! A little help here!"

She rushed into his line of sight, and Jack noted with a mixture of pride and annoyance that she still clutched her rifle. "I don't need you to shoot him," he ground out.

With a sheepish grimace, she laid the weapon aside and came to her knees opposite her CO. "What should I do?"

"Wake him up!"

Assailed again by his friend's frantic kicks, Jack clambered on top of him. His face only inches from Daniel's, Jack cringed from the usually gentle eyes, wide now in terror. Those normally eloquent lips were pulled back, too, Daniel's teeth exposed in a feral snarl.

"Damn it, Daniel!" Jack roared when Daniel pulled against the hold Jack had on his wrists, trying to unseat him.

Slipping behind him, Carter seized Daniel's shoulders in a firm grip and shook him, hard. "Come on, Daniel," she all but pleaded. "Wake up!"

Rather than calming him, her grasp only served to increase Daniel's urge to battle. Crying out, he shoved backward, knocking Carter over. He twisted fiercely, and Jack felt suddenly as though he was fighting a giant carp, desperate to get off the hook embedded in its cheek. Muscles straining, he let go his hold on the hands and reached around Daniel, pulling him into a do-or-die hug.

Daniel stiffened and wriggled against the embrace, his frustration loosed in an ear-shattering howl.

"Daniel Jackson!"

The cry broke off instantly, the silence deafening in its wake. Daniel slumped limply; Jack's hold the only thing keeping him upright. Carter scrambled awkwardly to her feet, poised to render aide in the event Daniel reanimated.  
  
"You couldn't have shown up sooner?" Jack griped when it appeared Daniel had indeed given up the fight. "I've been wrestling with him for ten minutes."

"My apologies, O'Neill. I was in a state of deep kel'no'reem. It was not until Daniel Jackson cried out that I was aware you required my assistance."

Daniel stirred. "Jack?" The query barely registered beneath Teal'c's booming bass.

"Hey," Jack soothed. "It's okay." He rolled off Daniel's legs.

Eyes wide with alarm, Daniel scanned each of his friends in turn. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"You don't know?"

Rubbing at his eyes, Daniel scowled from behind his fist. "What is that, a joke? I wake up to find you sitting in my lap and I'm supposed to know why?"

"You were having a nightmare, Daniel," Carter supplied gently.

"A real doosy, too. Sounded at first like you saw Sha're. Then, I'm guessing when I grabbed your shoulder to wake you, your brain turned that into someone trying to hold you against your will. You said, 'My friends need me. I can't stay with you.' Ring any bells?"

Daniel's hand dropped away from his face, falling against his blanketed leg with a muted plop. Mouth slightly agape, he looked at Jack like he'd just sprouted a second head. "I didn't have any dreams tonight. It took a while, but I was finally sleeping soundly. Until you sat on me."

"Daniel." Taking his wary posture into account, Carter slowly came to a stooped position at Daniel's side. "You were having a nightmare. You were combative. Now, I didn't hear you say anything, but from what I saw, the colonel's interpretation makes sense."

"Except," Daniel countered with exaggerated patience, "I. Was. Not. Dreaming."

Jack eyed him with irritation. "Yeah, okay. Have it your way. You still look like crap."

"I told you, I had trouble falling asleep."

"I will take your watch, Daniel Jackson, so that you may acquire more rest."

"No, Teal'c—"

"Yes, Daniel!" Jack overrode the objection. Carter, when your watch is over, wake Teal'c not Daniel for the last watch."

Tendering an apologetic smile to Daniel, Carter nodded, "Yes, sir."

Clearly unhappy that he'd been given no say, Daniel crossed his arm and glared defiantly at Jack. Almost immediately, his face screwed up in distaste, and he tugged at the neck of his t-shirt. Glancing down at the moisture staining his shirt to mid-chest, Daniel casually swept his damp hair away from his face. "I seem to have been perspiring. Would you guys mind giving me a minute to change?"

Jack shared a look with Carter. Her eyes held only concern, none of the anger he felt chewing at his own insides. "Sure," he said at length. "Let's give him a minute."

Ushering his teammates towards the exit with a wave of his hand, Jack followed them out. Paying no mind to the fact that he was still in his skivvies, he led the procession to the campfire, the pounding surf fitting accompaniment to his agitated march.

He suppressed a shiver, the night air significantly cooler than the inside of the tent. The potential for gooseflesh was not limited to his extremities however, and Jack glanced over his shoulder to the large double moons looming over the treetops. They were more likely the reason the hairs on the back of his neck were on alert.

The first moon had appeared midway through his watch, peering at him over the tree tops like a nosy neighbor spying over the hedge. Three times larger than the one Jack was used to seeing, it was difficult to judge whether it was the moon’s extreme size or it’s proximity to the planet which made it appear so big.

Just about the time the first moon had cleared the woods, the second popped up, a little brother tagging along with his massive sibling. About one-fourth the size of its fellow, the second moon was just as full.

The moons cast an oppressive blue haze over the place, reminding Jack of the smoke hanging in the bar where he spent too much of his life drinking away his pain after Charlie’s death.

"Teal'c,” Jack said, purposefully fleeing from that thought. “You'll be alright taking that extra watch? You can kel'no'reem in the morning if you need to."

"I will be fine," Teal'c replied assuredly.

Taking him at his word, Jack dropped onto one of the larger rocks surrounding the fire pit. Arms crossed over his knees, he leaned towards the dying flames.

Still on watch, Carter stood back from the fire, eyes scanning the tree line. "Any idea what the dream was about, sir?" she asked quietly.

"Sounded like he mistook someone for his wife, someone who was preventing him from rendering assistance to the rest of the team. He didn't use a name, but if I had to guess..." His mind seized with hatred, Jack cast a heated glance, not intended for the man inside, towards the tent he shared with Daniel. "I'd say Shyla's taken another foray into Danny Dreamland."

~oOo~

Shoving the last of his tools into his pack, Daniel took up his open journal. There, on four successive pages, he had carefully copied the series of markings he'd found in the building. Daniel frowned. Absent an encounter with a native speaker or a Rosetta Stone, he was unlikely to ever know what the inscriptions said. He'd discovered a pattern in their arrangement, but with no way to know what each symbol represented, he'd have to write this trip off as yet another in his long list of failures.

_Daniel._

"Coming," Daniel murmured. He slammed the journal closed, disappointment overriding respect for the book, and dropped it into the open pack.

_Daniel._

"Geez, gimme a minute, will ya?" he bit out between clenched teeth. Hackles up, he stormed through the nearest exit. He raised his hand to his mouth, ready to vent his ire on whichever of his teammates was so hell bent on harassing him. The hand fell to his side. Except for Sam, who glanced up from her experiment to wave, obviously mistaking his gesture of defiance for greeting, none of his friends seemed interested in his whereabouts.

_Daniel._  
  
Spinning sharply, Daniel squinted out over the lake. He took a shuffling step forward, responding to an almost overwhelming pull from the water. He scanned its choppy surface, from the rocky outcropping on his left to the point where the water disappeared around the land mass on his right. There was no one out there.

Shaking himself free of the water's mesmerizing effect, he chuffed a self-mocking laugh.  
  
"Don't be stupid, Daniel," he muttered to himself. "Who'd be calling you from the depths of the lake?"

_More likely, it was a remnant of your dream—nightmare—from last night._ A shudder worked its way up his slender frame as he recalled the details: His beautiful wife, dark brown eyes smiling, called to him from the entrance to their tent. As he approached, she turned and walked away. He'd tried to follow, imploring her to wait for him, but something kept him from her—the temptation of a mistress too powerful to resist. The sarcophagus. Represented in his dream by a faceless woman—though Daniel knew it was she who caused his addition—it enticed him further away from his wife, from his friends, from himself.   
  
Snatching off his glasses, Daniel knuckled away angry tears. _Why is this coming up again? I beat that damn sarcophagus months ago._ Pulling a long breath, he dropped his head between his shoulders, letting it out in a whooshing sigh.

_I shouldn't have lied to Jack. I should have told him what Shyla did is haunting me again... No. I can't give him any reason to wonder about my fitness for gate travel. Sha're needs me._

"Just like I can't tell him I'm hearing voices from the lake," he chuckled bitterly. _It was all in my head. Just an echo of that nightmare—Shyla calling me back to the sarcophagus._

Or maybe Sha're was calling to him?

Feeling suddenly like his legs might give out on him, Daniel leaned heavily against the structure. His inability to save his wife haunted him every bit as much as the sarcophagus addiction.

A soft breeze caressed his brow and Daniel gave himself over to the calming touch. As his eyes slid closed, he tipped his face to the sky. Contending for equal influence, the sun kissed his cheeks and chin, the warmth of the buss quickly overpowering the cooling benefit of the wind.

Daniel loosed another tension-breaking breath and opened his eyes, his mind refocused on his surroundings.

The sun had long ago reached its zenith, on the downward slide now towards the distant horizon. Assuming today would mirror its predecessor, in just over an hour, the sun would immerse itself in the cool blue-green water, its brilliance extinguished in a haze of pink and purple clouds.

A calloused hand encircling the base of his neck, Daniel swiped the perspiration from his skin. He slipped a few fingers into the damp neckline of his filthy desert camo t-shirt, and pulled it away from his skin, inviting the breeze in. Obligingly answering the call, the air moved across his torso, drawing moisture and stirring his nipples to attention as it passed over them.

Relishing the contact, Daniel indulged the intrusive voice in his head bemoaning the far too many months since human hands had touched him with such reverence. Sha’re had loved to tease along the contours of his ribcage and collar bone with fingertips and tongue, giggling softly at his responsive quivers. Covering every inch of skin, she had paid particular attention to the small twin nubs of flesh, pinching and laving them to almost painful erection.

Shaking himself out of the memory with a bitter curl of his lip, Daniel let his head fall between dejected shoulders, and glared at the small pebbles beneath his feet. “Better enjoy the breeze,” he muttered to himself. “It’s probably the closest you’ll ever again come to that kind of loving touch.”

Squeezing his eyes tight, Daniel moaned softly. There had been other women, other caresses, since Sha're was taken by the Goa'uld—none of them gentle or loving. First, Hathor had taken from him what he would never have freely given, screwing with his mind in the bargain. Then, Shyla, who, casting him in the role of white knight to her damsel in distress, had wooed him with a sarcophagus and very nearly took his soul.

Jack was quick to remind him that he was not to blame for either of his indiscretions. Not sure he believed it completely, still Daniel found it easier to forgive himself for cheating on Sha're than he ever could for failing her. Teal'c was right; he'd wasted precious time on Abydos feeling sorry for himself and negotiating with his wife. He should have taken Sha're home immediately; she would have followed him without question.

Instead she was back with Apophis, once more a prisoner of Amounet. That was his fault and now Daniel despaired of ever having the chance to hold his wife again.

Voices sounded further down the beach, and Daniel pulled himself from the isolating morass of self pity in favor of the consolation of friendship. Slipping his glasses back on, Daniel glanced around the stone structure where he'd spent most of his day, and broke into a spontaneous smile.   
  
Staff weapon tucked against his side, Teal’c marched doggedly on the outer perimeter of the space they'd claimed, ever vigilant. They hadn’t encountered anything dangerous, human or animal, yet Teal’c, faithful in his self-appointed duty to ensure their safety, still made this circuit every few hours.

Very near Teal'c's current position, Sam sat in one of the few spots of sunshine that actually made it through the thick green canopy sheltering their camp. Clear plastic Petri dish in one hand and magnifying glass in the other, she appeared to be more closely examining the samples of black sand she had collected earlier that morning.

A shout echoed its way to him over the crash of the waves on the lake and Daniel turned his attention to his team leader. Crouching before the mound of bags and equipment that had accumulated between the tents, Jack plucked up one of the daypacks and began to rifle through it. Apparently not finding what he was after, he tossed the pack roughly aside and grabbed another. Shaking his head, Daniel chuckled softly. Goal-oriented in the extreme, Jack often lost patience when some obstacle thwarted successful completion of any mission. Like an elusive… whatever it was he was searching for.

Or a team member slowly unraveling at the seams. Daniel had no delusions; Jack had arranged this trip solely for his benefit. That the others also got the chance to enjoy a little sunshine and playful exploration was just a bonus.

The idea frightened and cheered him at the same time. It felt good, at this stage of his life, to have a friend who cared enough to peer through the mask of contentment Daniel put on every morning, quietly distinguishing the turbulent state of his spirit from the calm, efficient parody of the archaeologist. No one knew him better than Jack. But such attentiveness brought with it the danger that Jack could discover just how needy Daniel was.

Another angry cry wafted on the breeze. Brushing as much dirt as he could from the front of his shirt, Daniel plucked up his backpack and slogged through the several inches of sand accumulated at the edge of the wall surrounding the ruins. His labored gait smoothed to a casual stroll as he came into the more compact ground at the campsite.

“Daniel,” Sam greeted him with a sly smile. “What are you doing back here? There’s still daylight left.”

Slightly bemused that the mild reprimand disguised as a rib had come from Sam instead of Jack, Daniel dropped onto the sandy bank next to her and produced his journal from the pack. “I thought for once I’d call it a day early and write my research notes while the sun is still shining instead of struggling to do it by firelight,” he returned jokingly, deciding to play along.

Stalking the distance between the tents and his teammates’ position, Jack halted abruptly, sending a plume of sand against their feet. “Yeah, that’s assuming we have a fire,” he growled. Hands on hips, he peered down at Daniel, undisguised suspicion pouring from his narrowed eyes. “I can’t find my lighter. You didn’t take it with you, did you?”

Eyebrows dancing a disbelieving two-step, Daniel looked from Jack to Sam and back to Jack. “Why would I take your lighter with me to explore the ruins of an alien temple? It’s not like I could use it to read those inscriptions I found.”

“How should I know?” Jack grumbled. “All I do know is that it’s not here and it’s the second time something has gone missing since we came to this place.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at his friend’s mounting melodrama, Daniel pursed his lips, taking a second to gather patience before he responded. “I thought we decided you lost your knife in the woods when you were gathering firewood yesterday,” he said.

“That was before my lighter disappeared, too,” Jack sputtered, turning to wave a hand in the direction of their backpacks.

"Someone always carries a spare. Why don't you just use that?"

"Because, this time, no one else packed a lighter," Sam said with a what-are-you-going-to-do shrug. "Either that or we've misplaced that one, too."

"I didn't 'misplace' my lighter, Carter. It's just gone."

"Sir, your lighter couldn't just disappear.”

“Yeah, Jack, you probably just dropped it in the sand sometime since you last used it.”

Whirling, Jack growled, “I’m telling you, someone is taking my stuff.”

Drawn by the increasingly strident tones emitted by his team leader, Teal’c strode back to camp, staff weapon ready to dispatch whatever was agitating his commander. “Is there a problem, O’Neill?”

“Yes, Teal’c, there is. It appears there is a thief on this planet.”

“Who?” Sam challenged, seemingly growing as flustered as Daniel that their CO was becoming unreasonably paranoid. “We haven’t seen any evidence that anyone else has been here for a very long time.”

Struck by sudden inspiration, Daniel shot a hand aloft to forestall Jack's reply. “Maybe it was nature spirits,” he offered helpfully.

“Who?” Though identical to the question she had directed at the colonel only a moment ago, rather than perturbation, Sam’s query to Daniel was peppered with genuine interest.

“Nature spirits,” Daniel said again. “Spirits of the forest, of the mountains or the sea.”

“Spirits,” Jack parroted, his tone decidedly disparaging.

This time, just the index finger came up. “No, gimme a minute here, Jack." As Sam had proven a more receptive audience, Daniel turned back to her. "There are countless natural spirits in mythology and folklore, any one or all of which could inhabit this planet. Nearly every culture has some deity or spirit based in the natural world. Probably the best known are the nymphs of Greek mythology. The tree nymphs are called dryads. Interestingly—"

"Or not," Jack dropped in.

Daniel spared him a glace, his rhythm unaffected by the interruption. "The Celtic tree goddess has a similar name, Druantia. Drus is the Celtic word for oak, just as drys means oak in Greek."

"Thus the fascination. We get it," Jack growled, rolling his hand to move Daniel along. "You want to just give us a quick list?"

"Sure. There's the Roman god, Silvanus. Aranyaru in the Hindu culture. The Mesopotamian god Emesh. The Russians have a woodland spirit, leshiye. From the British Isles, there's the Scottish Ghillie Dhu, the Greenman of Wales, England's oakmen and pillywiggin..."

"Pillywiggin?" Jack scoffed.

"Kodama from Japanese folklore. Then there's the generic tree elves, fairies and sprites...”

Jack shot him a quelling look. "Okay, I think we get the idea."

"I haven't even touched on the water spirits." Daniel turned toward the lake, his studied gaze skimming the surf. "Though I doubt they'd be interested in your lighter."

Sam raised an inquisitive brow. "Does each culture have its own water spirit, too?"

"Carter." Jack's reproachful look said what his lips had not, 'Don't encourage him!'

Weighing Jack's unspoken objection against the curiosity in his fellow scientist’s eyes, Daniel nodded. "Yes. You may be familiar with the Greek naiads—or more correctly, since this is a lake, limnades. Japanese legend tells of the Kappa, a child-sized, reptilian water sprite. Some among the Sawa ethnic groups of Cameroon worship a deity called the Jengu.”

Jack’s eyes squeezed tighter, a sure sign his patience was wearing thin.  
  
“Um,” Daniel began to wind down, “there’s also the Rusalka of Russia, Welsh Morgans, Scottish Merrow, grindylows–”

“Did we not discuss grindylows in the aftermath of your abduction by Nem?”

A smile touched Daniel’s lips. “Yes, Teal’c, we did.”

“We did?” Jack asked, surprised.

“Teal’c and I did,” Daniel clarified. “He came to my office when I was researching the Oannes.”

Jack grinned knowingly. “Made the mistake of asking what he was doing, huh? That’ll kill an afternoon.”

“On the contrary, O’Neill, I encouraged Daniel Jackson to expand upon his research. I found our conversation quite enlightening. The grindylow are most intriguing.”

“Really? Why’s that?” Sam wanted to know.

“Most water spirits lure humans into their environment for companionship or to keep them from disclosing their location,” Daniel explained. “Grindylow are known to grab their victims, usually children, with the express purpose of devouring them.”

The wind off the lake caressed his hair and, as Daniel turned, a voice soft as a lover’s kiss whispered across his earlobe. He squinted into the undulating waves which for a moment took on the form of a recumbent woman.

“Teal’c thinks the grindylow are the most dangerous. But, being killed outright is kind compared to what some these creatures will do to you.”  
  
“Need I remind you," Jack said with enough bite to send Daniel’s daydream packing, "that, by your own admission, these spirits of yours are all mythological?"  
  
Daniel blinked at him, waiting for the statement to register. “On Earth, yes. But it’s possible those myths have some basis in fact on other worlds. Some time in the past, someone from this planet may have come to Earth with news of its amazing creatures. Since no one there had ever seen them, they wove those descriptions into their mythology.”

"Which spirits do you believe responsible for the disappearance of O'Neill's possessions?"

Daniel gave the question a moment's consideration. “My guess would be wood nymphs. Fire can be very destructive, so they wouldn't want us using the lighter." Jack groaned in protest, drawing Daniel's attention. "That big knife of yours could cut down a small tree. They would definitely confiscate something like that.”

Teal'c canted his head, intrigued. "Would not these woodland spirits also abscond with the remaining knives?"

"Maybe not. Jack's the only one who's been cutting kindling." He gave Jack an appraising look. "They've seen you use it against the trees."

Jack stared at Daniel for a second, his expression perfectly blank, before turning away and making a show of checking out the treetops. “Maybe it was monkeys.”

“We haven’t seen any monkeys, sir,” Sam said.

“Maybe they’re invisible,” Jack proposed, his snide smirk making it impossible to know if the suggestion was serious.  
  
“Invisible monkeys?” Daniel spat, his tone just on the edge of derision. “Why not just say they can fly, too?”

Snatching up the taunt, Jack wielded it victoriously. “Yes! Winged monkeys who swoop in undetected and steal my stuff.”

Daniel’s mouth fell open then snapped shut almost immediately, irritation pressing his lips into a flat line. “And you want to scoff at my suggestion of mythological creatures.”

“At least monkeys are real,” Jack retorted.

“Invisible winged ones?” Daniel mocked outright, exasperation taking over.

Taking a small step forward, Teal’c placed himself in the middle of the controversy, gazing down his nose at each combatant in turn. “There are a multitude of simian species residing in the jungles of your planet,” he declared with supreme reason. “Perhaps a similar creature thrives in this environment.”

Unwilling to dismiss Teal’c's contribution outright, Daniel aimed his response at Jack. “Well, there’s certainly no reason to believe that invisible monkeys live here, winged or otherwise.”

“Oh, but there’s reason to believe that nature spirits do?”

“Why not? If we’re going to blame the disappearance of your lighter—”

“And my knife.”

“—and your knife, on some unknown entity, it could just as easily be mine as yours. In either event, we need to be open to the possibility that we’re sharing this space with a being we’ve never encountered before.”

“Except maybe in those little fantasy books you’ve got all over your office.”

Coming to his feet, Daniel opened his mouth to refute Jack's assessment, but a firm hand on his shoulder literally shook the remark from him.

“Why don’t you and I take a walk down to the beach?" Jack suggested. "You can wash up while Carter makes dinner.”

“Sir, it’s your turn—”

“Carter. Daniel needs a bath. I’d bet he’s got sand in places no gritty particle should ever be allowed. I think maybe he’d prefer you not see him naked.”

“Sam’s seen me naked. I don’t mind if she doesn’t.”

“I don’t mind,” Sam chirped brightly.

“Well, I do. Beaten and bloodied in a dank Goa’uld dungeon is one thing. Frolicking happily on a pristine alien beach is another.”

“Frolicking?” Daniel squeaked indignantly.

“Just grab your gear and let’s go. Carter, see if you can find that lighter." Rolling a snatching glance at the treetops, he added, "Teal’c, keep an eye out."

Snagging a towel and clean clothes from his pack, Daniel shuffled up behind Jack. "Not even Teal'c can protect your stuff from invisible monkeys," he muttered.

"Har har. Carter, holler when you’ve got chow on.”

“Yes, sir,” she sighed resignedly.

~oOo~

Jack stood at the topmost limit of the waves' influence, toes curling in the frothy wash. Several meters into the lake, Daniel lay on his back bobbing peacefully in the surf, carried along like so much flotsam and jetsam.

Though the water was comfortably temperate, the air had begun to chill considerably once the sun dipped to the point it no longer countered the cooling effects of the breeze. Jack pulled the edges of his jacket together, holding them closed over his chest with crossed arms.

Daniel had chosen to swim in his undershorts and tee shirt. Occasionally, a breaker pushed the tan fabric up his torso, exposing the sharp planes of his too-thin frame. Squinting against the glare of the setting sun, Jack concentrated on Daniel's face. Pleased to find his friend's forehead free of worry lines or knots, the lips drawn upward in contentment, still Jack growled under his breath.

_I probably should go easier on him,_ he berated himself. _His self-esteem has taken some major hits lately. The last thing he needs is another reason to doubt himself._ Lifting the bill of his cap with one hand, Jack slid the other beneath it and angrily kneaded the top of his head. _Way to go, O’Neill, kick the kid when he’s down. Would it really hurt you to just give his theories a little more credence?_ He was drawn out of his self-recriminations by movement in the water.

Arms pin wheeling over his head, tossing out an arching spray on each side, Daniel suddenly flipped over. Facing away from shore, he tread water for a moment, then, with a gentle breast stroke began moving into deeper water.

Jack took a few steps into the surf. "Hey! Daniel, don't go out there too far!"

Rather than heed the warning, Daniel switched to an overhand stroke, swimming in earnest.

"Daniel!"

"Sir, is there a problem?"

Jack waved Carter off, not daring to take his eyes off Daniel lest he lose him in the encroaching darkness. "Damn it, Daniel! Come back in! Now!"

Rather than slow, Daniel seemed to speed his retreat.  
  
"Sonofabitch!” Throwing off his hat, Jack stripped out of his jacket, tossing it beyond the reach of the waves, and jogged into the water. From the corner of his eye, he detected a large dark shape plunge beneath the surf, also headed towards their wayward archaeologist.

"Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c called the moment he broke the surface.

Diving in, Jack swam hard, scooping and tossing large quantities of lake water out of his way with every stroke.

Because of the angle at which he'd approached, Teal'c reached Daniel first. Expecting the Jaffa could handle him unassisted, Jack pulled up a few meters from the pair, treading water to watch.

Laying a hand on the younger man's shoulder, Teal'c reeled from a fist to his cheek. Daniel slipped out of his grasp, pushing off the larger man's bulk to gain distance.

"Damn it to hell," Jack muttered. He dug in again, kicking furiously. Quickly gaining on Daniel, he heard his friend's breathy, "Almost there," just as his hand fisted into the neck of Daniel's t-shirt.

"No!" Daniel cried, reaching behind him to pry at Jack's fingers. "I have to go to her!" One arm insufficient to keep him afloat, Daniel's face dipped beneath the waves. He came up sputtering, twisting to free himself from Jack's hold.

Flailing wildly, Daniel shoved against Jack's shoulder. The hand pushed down on him and Jack found himself going under, his hold on Daniel dragging his friend with him. A shadowy figure loomed from his left and Jack loosed his hold on Daniel, kicking free to allow Teal'c access. Rising quickly, he snatched a quick breath and plunged back in.

Coming from behind Daniel, Teal'c encircled the slender frame with his long arms. Surprised, Daniel had no time to counter the move and Teal'c quickly captured his wrists. Crossing his arms, he pinned Daniel's hands against his chest. Daniel threw his head back, wild panic or a deliberate attempt to break the hold, but Teal'c deftly dodged a blow.

Mouth open in a gurgling scream, a stream of bubbles carrying it to the surface, Daniel wriggled futilely in the grasp. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jack moved in, wrapping his arms tightly around Daniel's knees, keeping him from kicking. On a silent signal, both he and Teal'c pushed for the surface.

Daniel's shout split the chill night air. "Please!" he sobbed. "She needs me!" He twisted weakly in their embrace, the cold seeming to leech the fight from him. Soon, he went completely limp.  
  
Jack slackened his grip, releasing Daniel's legs when they floated harmlessly towards the surface. He reached out, laying a tentative hand against Daniel's neck. Relieved to find a pulse, he frowned at the velocity with which it hammered against his fingertips. Swiping saturated strands of long hair from Daniel's face, he shared a concerned look with Teal'c.

"You gonna be able to get him to the beach?"

"I can." Shifting his hold to grip both of Daniel's wrists in one hand, Teal'c hugged the younger man to him so Daniel's head rested against his shoulder. He reclined into the water, letting it support them both, and reaching back with his free arm, gently stroked towards the shore. Daniel floated placidly behind him, his parted lips the only evidence of his struggle.

Keeping pace with Teal'c, ready to assist if Daniel showed signs of resistance, Jack paddled towards camp.

As they neared the shore, Jack could just make out a figure on the beach. Emergency blankets clutched before her, Carter shuffled, a move absurdly resembling the box step he'd been forced to learn in adolescence.

She took a step forward as they approached and would likely have joined them in the surf if not for her CO's warning.

"Three of us soaked to the skin is enough, Carter. Stay where you are. We'll bring Daniel to you." His toe scraped bottom and, planting his feet, Jack stood. Water fell off him in streams, pattering back into the lake with a sound like muted bells. He turned, supporting Daniel's legs as Teal'c lifted him above the tide.

Laying one of the blankets in the sand, Carter quickly wrapped Daniel's shivering form in the other as they lowered him to the ground. Vigorously rubbing Daniel's chest and arms, Carter cast a worried look Jack's way. Daniel lay unresisting, motionless except for the shudders that assailed him, grey as the metallic material in which he was enshrouded.  
  
"What happened out there?" Carter asked.

"He started swimming out into the depths. Fought like hell when we tried to stop him. It was like he was in a trance or dreaming, or something."

"Dreaming? Is it possible he fell asleep out there on the surf?"

"Who knows? He certainly didn't do much sleeping in the tent last night after that nightmare. Maybe, floating on the water, he finally relaxed enough to drift off."

"Is it usual for Daniel Jackson to vocalize in his sleep, O'Neill?"

Carter's eyes widened. "He spoke? What'd he say?"

Jack scrubbed his fingertips over his scalp, pelting the sand with tiny droplets of water. "When I first grabbed him, he said, 'I have to go to her.' And when I refused to let him go, he pleaded with me. Said, 'She needs me,' or something like that."

"Shyla again?" Carter ventured.

Looking up sharply from his vigil over their young friend, Teal'c asked, "You believe Daniel Jackson is reliving his experience on P3R-636."

"Carter has a theory," Jack replied tiredly. "If this was like his nightmare last night, it was either Shyla or Sha're. In either event, he wasn't happy to be kept from her."

Turning away from Teal'c's naked concern, Jack scowled into the darkness surrounding their campsite. "Still haven't located the lighter, huh?" he deduced, noting the significant lack of a fire.

"No, sir."

"Okay." He roughly swept the remaining water from his face with his palms. "Bundle him up and get him into camp. I'm gonna run back and get our clothes before Daniel's fairies or whatever they are, make off with them, too." Waiting just long enough to make sure Teal'c didn't need help lifting Daniel into his arms, Jack turned on his heel and jogged down the beach to retrieve their belongings.

By the time he got back to camp, Carter and Teal'c had Daniel wrapped in one of the sleeping bags. Only his head was visible, tendrils of damp hair tenaciously clinging to his cheeks and forehead.

Tossing their boots and Daniel's dirty BDUs in a pile, Jack shrugged into his jacket. "Has he said anything?"

Carter looked up from her self-appointed post on Daniel's right. "No, sir. Didn't even stir when we put him in dry shorts and a tee shirt. His pulse and breathing are fine. I think he's just sleeping."

"Have you tried waking him?"

From Daniel's other side, Teal'c canted an inquiring eyebrow. "Why would we wish to wake him, O'Neill? Did you not state earlier that Daniel Jackson had difficulty sleeping last evening?"

"Right," Jack sighed. He gestured to the tent he and Daniel shared. "I'm gonna go change. Carter, I don't suppose you were able to keep the MREs warm."

She looked at him blankly, seeming not to understand the question. "Sorry," she said at length, and shifting, began to rise. "I could open more—"

"No." Jack offered a pardoning grin. "You keep an eye on Daniel. It won't hurt us to eat cold rations. After dinner, we'll move him back to the tent. Obviously, we shouldn't rely on Daniel for sentry duty tonight, so I'll take first and last watch. Soon as the sun shows itself in the morning, we'll head back to the gate."

"Yes, sir."

Taking one last, long look at his slumbering friend, Jack trudged back to the tent to get out of his wet things.

~oOo~

Jack determinedly stifled a yawn behind his fist. Holding his weapon out in front of him, he gingerly bent to one side, then the other, stretching out the long muscles of his back. He gazed out over the lake, noting with relief that the sky had lighted a shade or two since he'd headed out on his perimeter check. He estimated sunrise would occur within the hour.

The waves slapped noisily at the shore, as they had done all night. Jack scowled darkly at them. He'd had to rely more heavily on his vision in the night than usual: the waves' infernal racket had made it damn difficult to discern other, potentially hazardous, sounds in the surrounding forest.

He'd complained to Carter about the din when she relieved him from his first watch.

"Those moons are jerking the water around like a terrier with a rope toy."

“It's likely a combination of factors," she’d replied helpfully. She’d gestured to the moons just visible beyond the trees. "Our moon doesn’t have a significant effect on lake waters. Given the relative nearness of these moons, plus the fact that there are two of them, they may have a greater impact here. If you're interested, I could give you a quick tutorial on the proportional effects of gravity, wind and current on large bodies of water."

"Thanks anyway," Jack had said over his shoulder as he'd made good his escape. "I've got Daniel's fairy tales to lull me to sleep."

But even the tall tales Daniel relayed as myths wouldn't have put him out this night. Not when Daniel lay unmoving in the sleeping bag next to him. More than once, Jack had reached over with trepidation to place hesitant fingers beneath Daniel's nostrils or on the pulse point of his throat. Carter had reported the same problem when she'd bunked with him during Jack's watch.

Jack gazed over his shoulder, to the tent where Daniel was playing out the role of Sleeping Beauty. Teal'c was with him now, having moved in after waking Jack for the final watch.

A cold caress across his scalp had the hairs at the base of Jack's neck standing on end. Whirling, he scanned the lake. In the murky predawn light—the moons had finally retreated beneath the horizon and the sun was just peeking over the woods—about the only things he could see clearly were the foamy white breakers headed for the shore.

The wind picked up. Stirred by the breeze, Jack's bangs teased along his forehead. Finding the sensation oddly calming, Jack closed his eyes for a moment to relish in it.

They snapped crisply open, his nape prickling again. Reflexively tightening his grip on his MP-5, he took a few steps back. Eyes narrowed to sharpen his vision, he scoured a spot on the lake thirty meters out, sure he'd seen something moving around out there. Finding nothing, he widened the search, once again sweeping the shore and the water in both directions.

Still there was no sign of anyone... or anything. He let out a harsh breath, realizing only at that moment that he hadn't breathed since he'd detected movement. Even without confirmation, Jack was not prepared to completely write the event off as a product of his imagination. He stared into the thick forest behind their camp.

"Time to get this show on the road."

Stalking back to the tents, he roused Teal'c first. "Has he moved at all?" he murmured, aiming his chin at the figure seemingly still shrouded in slumber.

"Only a moment ago," Teal'c replied.

Delight and relief lifted Jack's features. "Well it's about time." Cringing slightly at his unintentionally increased volume, he frowned at Daniel, who remained undisturbed by the outburst. "Come on," Jack said to Teal'c. "I'll get Carter to make breakfast while we break camp. Let Daniel rest. I'll call him when it's time to eat."

Carter got up immediately, agreeing without complaint to prepare their morning meal. Backing out of her tent, Jack waited, determining he'd need to answer a call of nature before they began packing up. Teal'c emerged first, staff weapon in hand.

"I want a quick perimeter check," Jack said. "You go to the far tree line and I'll look over here." Shooting a thumb over his shoulder, he added, "I need to make a quick pit stop, so if you don't see me for a few minutes, don't panic."

Teal'c nodded acknowledgement and headed for his post. Thankful that Teal'c had quickly learned Tau'ri shorthand related to bodily functions, Jack traipsed to the woods in the opposite direction to relieve himself.

He was just pulling up his zipper when all hell broke loose.

"Daniel!" Carter yelled, her tone unmistakably alarmed.

Jack burst out of the underbrush, cursing under his breath. Clearly visible in the increasing illumination, Daniel ran towards the lake, legs pumping like his very life depended on reaching it. He hit the water hard, and began to swim.

Racing down the beach, Jack pulled up beside his 2IC at the edge of the lake. Thrusting his MP-5 into her arms, he began taking off his boots. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know, sir. He came out of the tent, started walking towards me then broke for the water."

With a growled expletive, Jack shed his jacket and waded into the surf. "Daniel!" he yelled. "Get your skinny ass back here right now!"

The command served only to make Daniel more desperate to get away. Digging into the water with renewed fervor, he began to put more distance between him and his team mates. Diving in, Jack swam just as desperately to catch him.

Off to his right, Jack heard Teal'c plow into the surf, his booming "Daniel Jackson!" preceding him.

Daniel slowed, and treading water, swiveled his head back and forth, as though he was looking for something he expected to find. He turned towards the beach, and Jack called to him again. Daniel stared right through him, his glassy eyes narrowing on a point just over Jack's right shoulder.

It felt as though something crawled across the back of his neck and, instinctively, Jack looked behind him. A splash sounded just over Carter's cry of distress and when Jack turned around, Daniel was gone.

Ducking under the breaking waves, Jack kicked with everything he had, launching himself towards Daniel's last known location. _Fuck!_ he screamed in his head, unable at that moment to give the sentiment voice. The constant chop of the water stirred up sand and vegetation from the bottom, making it feel as though he was searching through a blender working to reduce nuts and spinach to liquid form. Had the sun been higher, he might have caught Daniel's shadow in the gloom, but the dim light of early morning offered no such assistance.

Refusing to give up, Jack narrowed his concentration until nothing registered but his visual perception. His rigorously trained powers of observation had saved his ass on more than one special ops mission gone bad. This time those skills were infinitely more crucial; this time he stood to lose one his kids.

Centering his attention on the search did not eradicate his need to breathe, however, and the lack of oxygen finally drove him to the surface. Dragging in precious air, fortifying himself for another dive, he loosed an involuntary shout of alarm when something shot out of the water a few meters from him.

Daniel's arm slapped the surface between them, and Jack flinched from the resultant spray of water headed for his face. Blue eyes seemingly as wide as his gaping mouth, Daniel stared without recognition, though whether that was still a product of his weird waking dream state or sheer panic, Jack had no time to determine.

His gaze was inexorably drawn to the right side of Daniel's neck. A tiny webbed hand rested there. Needle-like nails punctured the skin, red pinpoints of irritation standing out starkly against Daniel's sickly pale complexion. A quick scan revealed two similar hands—translucent green, his brain inanely recorded—on Daniel's left shoulder and another set wrapped around the arm extended in Jack's direction.

Jack lunged forward, but before he could reach him, the unseen owners of those deadly paws pulled Daniel back under.

Jack would have followed, but a familiar sound reverberating in the dawn stopped him as effectively as if he'd been physically restrained.

"O'Neill," Teal'c called again from a point in the water north of Jack's location. "They are coming from this direction. I believe they intend to take Daniel Jackson back with them."

_Back where?_ Jack wanted to ask, and _Who the hell are they?_ but now was not the time for either of those questions. He treaded water and watched while Teal'c, staff weapon firmly gripped in his left hand, dipped beneath the waves.

For too many long seconds Jack held his breath, eyes riveted to the spot where he'd last seen his friends. The surface of the lake lit up suddenly, like heat lightning illuminating the dark sky on a sweltering summer evening. Almost immediately, Teal'c sprouted up from the water. Alone.

"Where's Daniel?" Jack demanded.

Teal'c shook his head and swiped his hand over his wet face. "There were too many, O'Neill. They are extremely fast."

"Too many of what?"

Shaking his head again, Teal'c gestured towards the shore and began swimming.

Jack swallowed against the heart hammering in his throat and followed suit.

Carter rushed into the surf to meet them. Clutching at Jack's arm, the grip too firm to be intended merely to render assistance, she pulled him to his feet. "Sir?" she inquired as their eyes met, hers full of dread.  
  
"I don't know, Carter," Jack said. He gently tugged his arm from her grasp and trudged wearily to the beach. Dropping gracelessly onto the sand, he scanned the lake in the light of the just risen sun.

Carter stood over him. He could feel her eyes on him, all those questions he couldn't answer swimming in the tears welling up in her eyes.  
  
He sighed heavily. "Teal'c, what the hell happened?"

Standing calf-deep in the surf, Teal'c planted the end of his staff weapon into the sand.

"Daniel Jackson's captors were too numerous. My staff weapon frightened them away, but many more came to take their place. I could not fire at them directly; they were too small. I could not risk injuring our friend."

"A direct hit by a staff blast would have been preferable to drowning," Jack muttered. He cringed, realizing Teal'c would view the comment as an indictment of his inability to rescue Daniel. He looked up, an apology perched on his lips.

"I do not believe Daniel Jackson has drowned, O'Neill."

Jack came stiffly to his feet. "What?"

"You think he's still alive?" Carter urgently asked.

"Daniel Jackson was attempting to free himself. I believe the beings who took him intended to deliver him to their place of dwelling."

"You said something like that out there: 'They're taking him back with them'."

"Indeed."

Remembering the little amphibious hands latched onto Daniel's neck and shoulder, Jack asked more harshly than he'd intended, "Who are they?"

"I believe they were grindylows."

"No," Jack automatically spat, a conditioned response usually reserved for Daniel's fanciful theories. "Gridylows are mythical."

"So were Apophis, Hathor and Heru Ur until we met them," Carter argued.

"They aren't really mythical gods, Carter. They're aliens **pretending** to be gods."

"Not to the people who worship them; to them Apophis is a god. Every bit as much as he was to the ancient Egyptians."

"Well, not to me."

Teal'c took a step towards them. "This debate is immaterial to our recovery of Daniel Jackson."

Jack’s face screwed up in self-rebuke. "You're right, Teal'c. Sorry. I don't know why I insisted on arguing the point."

"You fear for Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said matter-of-factly. "If these creatures are the grindylows of Earth legend, then our friend is in grave danger."

"Let's just hope, for Daniel's sake, they're every bit as false as those Egyptian gods." Jack snapped fully upright, his shoulders rigidly squared, a man ready for action. "You know which way these little squids took him?"

Turning slightly, Teal'c lifted his staff weapon perpendicular to the ground, the weapon a true extension of his arm. He aimed it at the rocky ridge that jutted from the beach into the water twenty meters to their left. "Following their trajectory, I believe their destination was that outcropping."

"Of course!"

Jack hefted an inquisitive brow at his 2IC. "Carter?"

"When Daniel and I took that walk down the beach yesterday, we discovered what we believed was an opening in the side of the ridge about midway into the lake. It was difficult to make out because all but the uppermost portion was submerged, but it's possible there's a cavern within those rocks. If it extends above the water line..."

"Daniel could survive in there," Jack concluded.

"Yes, sir."

Convinced that Daniel was out there in need of their help, Jack segued easily into command mode. "Okay. Carter, let's go check out this cavern of yours.” Stomping into his boot, he shoved his arms into the jacket she held out to him. “Teal'c, load up one of the packs with emergency blankets, med kits, flashlights—everything you think we'll need for S and R—and meet us over there."

~oOo~

Daniel woke with a start, his dream of foot-long taloned frogs chasing him back to reality. Blinking blearily into the darkness, he shivered, the chill night air conspiring with his nightmare to cover him in gooseflesh. He reached for his sleeping bag; it wasn't the first time he'd kicked off the covers in his sleep. Rather than thickly padded government-issue sleeping gear, his palm slapped wetly on his cold hard bed.

Coming immediately to full wakefulness, Daniel sat up with a gasp. He wasn't in his tent. Eyes wide with alarm, he looked wildly about him. Unable to see much of anything in the oppressive gloom, he felt panic hovering, waiting for its cue to take him.

Refusing to give in to it, Daniel took a deep breath, willing the heartbeat pounding in his temples to quiet so his brain could function properly. The air was dank. Fetid mustiness assailed his sinuses, reminding him of a trip to the working side of Fisherman's Wharf in the summer of his junior year at UCLA. He wrinkled his nose against the stink.

With the comprehension of his surroundings came the awareness of the beads of frigid water slithering down his neck like tiny icy serpents. Fingering his dripping locks away from his eyes, he took a closer look around.

Unfettered, yet certain he was a prisoner, Daniel called softly to his friends, fearful of waking his captor lurking undetectable in the inky blackness. Mechanically wiping his saturated palm against his leg, he startled when, instead of military grade cotton, he encountered cold, clammy skin. Grimacing at his state of virtual undress—boxers and a t-shirt was hardly socially acceptable attire—Daniel instead rubbed his hand against his chest.

He was suddenly cognizant of stinging pain, primarily on the left side of his neck, but present also in numerous other places on his torso and extremities. Pushing aside a flashing memory of the small amphibious creatures that had invaded his dreams, Daniel ignored his discomfort, and concentrated on his surroundings.

As his eyes adjusted, he became aware of a faint glow pushing into the darkness just to his left. Equivalent in brightness to the light from the corridor that slipped through the paper-thin space beneath the door when he shut everything in his office down to catch a few hours of sleep on the couch, this illumination offered no comfort. Rather, its eerie influence served only to cast his environment in an otherworldly light, like he'd woken on the set of a science fiction movie.

Adding to his discomfiture was the unnatural quiet. Except for the occasional drip of water—and his own panted respirations—Daniel was surrounded by utter silence. Holding his breath a moment and straining his ears, he found he could just make out the brush of wave against rock. The sound was heavily muffled, but whether by distance or the thickness of the structure in which he found himself, he hadn't a clue.

Cautiously, Daniel extended his hand into the shadows. At about arms length, his fingertips impacted what he assumed was the wall of the cave... or wherever he was. Scooting closer, he flattened his hand against the cold, damp surface and was surprised to find it was smooth, not pitted as he'd expect rock to be. He skimmed the surface, and his fingers curled over the edge of what at first appeared a natural ledge in the wall. Using the handhold as an anchor, he pulled himself first to his knees, then to his feet.

He curled his toes in the puddle of water he'd been sitting in, finding it pleasantly warm compared to the cold air surrounding the rest of him. Likely a product of his own body heat he guessed, though at the moment he marveled he had any of that to spare.

Keeping his hand on the wall, Daniel inched to his right. He drew back his foot with a hiss. Rather than smooth like the wall, the floor appeared littered with sharp rocks or, if the pain in his foot was any indication, shards of glass. He set the foot down carefully, huffing a small sigh of relief when there was no spike in discomfort. The object had been content to pierce his skin without burrowing into it. Resolving to be more deliberate with the placement of his bare feet, Daniel redirected his attention to the task at hand.

A more extensive exam of the 'ledge' revealed that it was instead a support beam of some kind. Protruding from the ground at a thirty degree angle, it terminated at the low ceiling, just about half a meter over Daniel's head.

_Fabricated, not natural,_ Daniel deduced. Immediately, his apprehension ratcheted up a notch. From the little he could see, this cavern looked nothing like the underwater accommodations Nem had provided for him, but the fact remained he had probably been brought here against his will. Though he had no recollection of the circumstances surrounding his abduction, he couldn't imagine having come to this place on his own.

He trembled again and cringed as icy droplets loosed from his wet hair wriggled down his neck. Absently splaying a hand against his chest, he fisted his saturated t-shirt and tugged it away from his skin. It parted from him reluctantly, its sucking protest echoing obscenely in the enclosed space.

Resuming his exploration, Daniel let his mind wander, seeking what details he could recall of his dream. He had been dragged underwater by grindylows—at least they'd looked like grindylows to him. He'd fought them, expecting to drown in the effort. They'd tugged and pushed him further beneath the surface, until Daniel felt his lungs would burst from the need to breathe.

So he had.

The memory startled him to stillness. Denied oxygen past his ability to endure, he'd taken an impulsive breath. Rather than filling with water, his lungs had expanded with pure air.

Shaking himself from his stupor, Daniel barked a short self-deprecating laugh. It had been a dream. He could not breathe underwater.

He refocused on his surroundings. He'd noted a change in the texture of the wall a few steps back. The quality had denigrated from iron-like smoothness to a grainy, sandy feel, closer to what he would expect given the raw materials Sam had discovered on the beach.

Continuing his walk, hands skimming over the rough finish, Daniel stopped when he came to an intersecting wall. He looked down and, instinctively, his fingers grasped for a handhold. The floor of the cavern was moving, gently undulating like a blanket of grass in a wind blown field. The light he'd noticed earlier shone out from beneath an overhang of rock, its illumination rippling on the current.

The motion made his head swim, and Daniel looked away. He'd recognized the rolling floor for what it was: a pool which stretched the entire length of the enclosure. Taking a moment to let his stomach settle, he concentrated on the calming slosh of water against rock.

After a moment, he gazed back over the route he'd taken to get here. Even in the dim glow, he could see that the ledge he stood on was uncomfortably narrow. He had only about two meters of solid ground before the rock dropped off into the water. It was a good thing he'd chosen to hug the wall. Had he at any time taken as few as three steps to the side he would have plunged into what was surely an icy bath.

"Okay," Daniel whispered, a preamble to a theory. "Assuming I'm still on—or under—the lake, the fact that this pool is not in almost constant motion, suggests that access to the cavern is below the tide line. The sun is the likely light source; the moons’ glow would be far less brilliant. Last I remember, though, the sun was setting."

A fact that unsettled him nearly as much as the thought that he'd gotten here without drowning.

There were plenty of instances in mythology and folklore where humans were safely transported to the ocean floor. Some even lived for years underwater. Daniel could site a whole list of piscine and amphibian humanoids with the magical powers to accomplish it.

Magic. Wouldn't Jack love that theory? He'd probably be the first colonel in the history of the United States Air Force to warrant a mental health discharge that read 'laughed himself silly.' The military would probably even reinstate the Section 8 provision for the occasion.

No. More likely he'd been brought here under a protective shield of some kind. Whose protective shield, though? That was the most pressing question.

Wracked with shudders, Daniel wrapped his arms around himself and squeezed tight. He briskly rubbed his hands over his upper arms to encourage circulation... and almost immediately wished he could jump out of his skin as it shrieked in protest. Bringing his arm close to his eyes, Daniel squinted in the modest light. Tiny red circles, like the faint halo surrounding a pinprick, dotted his skin. Gingerly probing one of the markings, Daniel hissed. If this was a pinprick, it seemed the pin was still in there.

As he twisted to bring his other arm into the light, his ribcage brushed the wall. Pain seared across his side, and Daniel was reminded that the punctures were not limited to his extremities. He became aware again of the prickling irritation at the juncture of his shoulder and neck. Resisting the urge to massage the discomfort away, he stepped away from the wall.

The ground lurched beneath him, or so it felt, and Daniel slammed his eyes closed. Rather than easing, the vertigo swelled, the sensation akin to being caught in a whirlpool. He shot out a hand, gripping the wall as heat rushed from his core, spreading through his torso like a wildfire through parched grass, burning its way upward. His face flushed hot, and Daniel pressed his forehead to the damp stone, seeking to quench the fire. As quickly as it had come, the warmth evaporated, leaving in its place a chill that rivaled his first Chicago winter. The resultant quivers nearly sent him crashing to the ground, and Daniel hugged the wall, gritting his teeth against the stabbing twinges where his punctured skin met the stone.

Breathing through the discomfort, he waited for the dizziness to pass. After several minutes, he cracked open an eye and, finding his surroundings more or less right side up, cautiously opened the other.

Almost immediately, his various other concerns were crowded out by the thrill of discovery. Directly across from him, tucked behind a curve in the stone very near where he'd started out, was a doorway. Daniel huffed out a disgruntled snort. It was so typical of the kind of luck he'd been having lately that he'd gone the wrong way. If he had moved left instead of right, he might be out of here already.

Such recriminations were pointless, and Daniel shook it off easily. Eyes on his target, he moved with cautious deliberation, fully aware now of the precarious nature of the walkway. He reached the corner in which he'd first found himself and the doorway disappeared for a moment, the angle of the wall obscuring it from view. Pausing for a fortifying breath, Daniel pushed on.

As he approached his goal, a small tide sloshed against the rim of the pool and Daniel registered several muffled splashes, as though someone had dropped stones into the water behind him. The pool stirred some more, churning to the point that water washed across Daniel's feet.

Turning, Daniel gazed into the pool, more curious than concerned. Intrigue turned instantly to dread as dozens of small, pale green bodies bobbed to the surface. Terrified, Daniel scuttled backward. His upper arm scraped against the stone just before his back met the wall with enough force to knock the breath from him. Finding himself back in his familiar corner, he pressed his shoulders into the juncture and cast wildly about him for something with which to defend himself.  
  
Grindylows surged up from the pool, and Daniel instinctively pushed to his toes as they formed a semicircle around him. Eyes encompassing nearly half the space on their reptilian faces peered at him through the gloom, their yellowish pupils glowing eerily in the dim light. Several of the critters grinned, their mouthfuls of sharp teeth reminding Daniel that the folklore surrounding the grindylow included the devouring of children. In spite of himself, Daniel cringed. He was much bigger than any of them, of course, but they had the advantage of numbers. Not to mention their fangs and claws.

_Do not fear, Daniel._

Soft light, like the warm glow from a hundred candles, flooded the cavern. Its source appeared to be the doorway he'd spotted earlier, and Daniel tore his eyes away from the carnivorous creatures at his feet to face what, if his rotten luck continued to hold, was likely a more dangerous threat.

The grindylow backed off as a tall, willowy figure glided into the cavern. Nearly Daniel's height, the woman possessed a carriage—head high, shoulders back, spine rigid—that bespoke royalty. Her thin form was draped in cream colored layers of a delicate material which glittered with understated brilliance, like dew on a spider's web.

Framed with flowing tresses of dark brown hair, incongruously lustrous given their surroundings, her face, while pale by human standards, glowed with health. Grey-green eyes sparkled above unblushed cheeks. Her full, rosy lips, currently pushed forward in a thoughtful moue, were likewise unadorned.

She looked him up and down, her eyes travelling a lazy course from his bare feet to his straggly, wet head. They lingered on his face, and her lips pulled back in a smile too close to predatory for Daniel's comfort.

"These little ones are my pets," the woman said at length. "They will not harm you... without my permission."

It occurred to Daniel to complain they'd already harmed him, but he decided that, unlike with the Goa'uld, antagonism was probably not the best strategy. At least not initially.

"Thank you for your protection," he said to appease her. "What should I call you?"

"I am Bereghinya."

"Bereghinya. I know that name. Probably from some myth or legend, or maybe it was history. It's Russian, right or Slavic?"

"These words mean nothing to me."

"Right. Sorry. They're Earth references. No reason you would understand their significance."

Bereghinya resumed her single-minded survey of his physique, and Daniel flashed her a nervous grin, pulling back on the expression just in time to keep it from turning into a grimace. Suddenly extraordinarily aware of his half-dressed state, he crossed his arms over his t-shirted torso and curled his toes in a ridiculous attempt to conceal the fact that he was bare-footed. Her scrutiny began to unnerve him and Daniel took to glancing around the enclosure as a means of averting her gaze. "Can you tell me—"

"You are very beautiful, young one."

Daniel's eyebrows raced up his forehead as his gaze snapped back to hers. He scraped a few strands of damp hair away from his face and frowned. "Thank you. I think. I prefer Daniel by the way... although, you seem to already know that's my name."

"Your friends utter it quite frequently... and with great passion."

"That was probably Jack," Daniel sighed. "He's been a bit impatient with me lately. Not that I haven't given him cause." Warmth swelled within him again, and Daniel lifted a hand, cool from the damp stone, and pressed it to his neck.

"You are well shed of him, of all of them. They cannot be such good friends who allow you to continue to dwell in sorrow.

Daniel blinked, startled. "Excuse me?"

"I sense your misery, Daniel," Bereghinya broke in soothingly. "Your feelings of isolation. I, too, have been without companionship for some time. I wish only to ease your pain."

"So you beckoned me," Daniel deduced. "That was your voice I heard on the beach last night, wasn't it?" He scowled as a vague memory tickled the back of his mind. "And that dream I had the other night. It wasn't Shyla luring me way. It was you."

"You willingly responded to my call."

"Then why was it necessary to have your 'pets' bring me here?"

Bereghinya tendered a patient smile, the kind a parent might use on an obstinate child. "You would have come on your own last night. Your companions prevented it. They attempted again this morning to keep you away. I sent my pets to assist you."

Considering the information, Daniel gently pushed himself away from the wall. He swallowed through a wave of nausea, determinedly ignoring the accompanying lightheadedness. Locking his knees, he stood as tall as his compromised balance would allow, and steadily met her gaze. "Dusk and dawn. These are the times you called to me."

"You are most alone in the dark. It was easiest to reach you in that time just before the sun sets, when the anticipation of night is greatest."

"You came to me in my dreams, too."

"Yes. I can communicate with your subconscious; however, my influence is severely weakened while your mind sleeps."

"You admit, then, that you had a hand in bringing me here. I'm not strictly a voluntary guest."

"It is a great honor to be chosen."

Daniel felt his mouth twist into a reasonable facsimile of Jack's standard sarcastic grin. "Well, that kinda depends on what I've been chosen for."

"For life," Bereghinya purred. "As I have said, Daniel, I have been unloved for far too long. You will be my consort. And while you are easing my loneliness, I will in turn relieve yours.”

"Ah. Well, as great as all that sounds, I'm going to pass. See, I have a wife. Plus, I've already done the boy-toy-of-a-megalomaniacal-goddess thing and it's not as much fun as it's cracked up to be. So, if you don't mind, I'll just be going now."

"I can calm your troubled heart, Daniel. You will forget this goddess. And your wife."

Taking a step forward, Daniel clutched at the wall as another bout of vertigo assailed him. "I don't want to forget my wife!" His voice cracked, and Daniel wrinkled his brow at the desperate tone. He couldn’t lose control. Parting his lips, he pushed out a harsh breath. "Look,” he continued with forced calm, “as much as I appreciate the fact that you deem me worthy of your attention, I'm really not interested. I think you'd be much happier with someone else."

"There is no one else."

"Then who built those structures on the beach?"

Bereghinya smiled sadly. "When I came to this place many generations ago, I had hundreds of worshippers."

"When you came here?" Daniel queried, intrigued in spite of himself. "You're not originally from this planet?"

"No. I am an exile from my own home." Her gaze shifted focus, turning inward with memory. "Guilty of no greater crime than falling in love with another woman's husband." She blinked, returning to the present, and Daniel dropped his gaze to hide his disapproval.

"I could not help herself," she moaned theatrically, a tone clearly designed to illicit his sympathy. "I am a victim of my own desires." She watched him a moment, frowning when Daniel failed to respond as she had intended. Dropping the pretense, she continued with a sneer. "His wife found out about us and demanded he terminate our relationship."

"This surprised you?"

"She had no right. We were in love!"

The tale was far too close to Daniel’s own: Apophis, who had no legitimate claim to Daniel’s spouse, had nevertheless stolen her from him. He could not let Berghinya’s complaint go unanswered.

"She was his wife! You had no right to take him from her!"

As indifferent to the pain she had caused as Apophis had proven to be, Bereghinya shrugged. "She reclaimed him in the end... pulling the knife from his chest to cut her own throat before falling across his lifeless body."

"Lifeless?" Daniel gasped, the implication of her stated position as witness to the woman's suicide sending chills up his spine. "You killed her husband," he concluded.

"He betrayed me, choosing to return to her. I would not be rejected in such a manner!" She jutted her chin in defiance. "The authorities decreed my execution. On the appointed day, I was able to convince a guard to release me. He gave me a weapon which I used to commandeer a dilapidated cargo ship and flee the planet. As we approached this area of space, the vehicle faltered. The pilot was killed, and though I survived the crash, I was stranded here."

Daniel slowly turned his head to inspect the 'manufactured' beam-like feature he'd noticed when he first began exploring. He ran a hand over its smooth surface. "This is your ship," he surmised. "You probably survived because you hit the lake instead of that forest." A tiny smile of satisfaction blossomed as he connected a relevant portion of her narrative with this information. "Generations ago, you said. So your ship is the basis for that outcropping that so intrigued Sam. It burrowed into the sand near the beach and over the centuries, sediment has built up around it until now it extends several hundred meters into the lake."  
  
Bereghinya smiled, clearly pleased by his ability to reason. "My pets arrived almost immediately after the crash. I believe they detected my silent call for help. Once I was free of the ship, I found there were people living nearby. They were very primitive; maintaining a mental link with them was very taxing at first."

Understanding dawned, and Daniel chuckled. "A mental link. I thought it was entirely too coincidental that you spoke English. So, the link allows for instantaneous mutual translation?"

"Yes. It works best on those with no resistance to the process. This is why my pets heard my cry. The people of this planet were frightened of the unknown and so they resisted the link. Having no other option, I persisted. I could not rely solely on my pets for companionship. And there were many men among them." A glimmer of her predatory smile returned, and Daniel instinctively shuffled backward a step. He swayed slightly, his throat working convulsively, the nausea he'd battled earlier threatening to defeat him. Determining that movement exacerbated his problems, Daniel made a mental note to keep as still as possible, even as Bereghinya said something that made his stomach lurch again.

"I learned that these people feared my pets, who, when their natural prey is scarce, will seek other sources of food."

Daniel swiped a hand across his damp forehead. "Human sources," he interpreted and squinted down at the creatures surrounding him. They watched him intently, their large amber eyes blinking rapidly. Gratified to find more interest than hunger in their disconcerting stares, he returned his attention to Bereghinya.  
  
"The people offered a sacrifice to them at those times the moons conjoined in the sky," she explained.

“Conjoined moons,” Daniel echoed. “Of course, that’s what those odd symbols on the post represented.”

"You've been to the structures on the beach."

"Yes. I've spent the last few days studying them."

Berenghinya nodded. "The wall had apparently stood there for ages before I arrived. It was built to encircle the post to which the sacrifice would be lashed. My pets would come in the night and claim the offering."

Daniel winced. Human sacrifice was a common enough theme among the ancient cultures he studied, but rarely had he come across a ritual that involved consuming the victim.

"It took very little to convince them that I held sway over the creatures they so feared," Bereghinya continued, unaware or unconcerned by Daniel's momentary discomfiture. "I offered them my protection."

"In exchange for?" Daniel queried, doubting she'd acted out of a sense of altruism.

"Their beautiful young men, given to me at my bidding."

Daniel screwed up his face in repugnance. "So, instead of being sacrificed to the grindylow... um, your pets, they were sacrificed to your desires."

"Why should this offend you? It was a more suitable alternative. I did not devour their young."

"I think that depends on your definition of devour," Daniel commented dryly.

Bereghinya frowned, half censorious, half troubled. "I do not understand your disapproval."

"I've met women like you before," Daniel said. "Too many, actually. You claim your only motivation is protecting your people, but all you really want is to exploit others for you own selfish gain."

Throwing off his judgment with a toss of her hand, Bereghinya sniffed. "The benefit was reciprocal. Their children were spared from sacrifice to the creatures they most feared, offered instead the opportunity to become my companions."

Daniel gave up with a sigh, seeing his point was lost on her. Opting to continue the dialogue—there was still much he didn't know about her—he couldn't keep a lingering tone of scorn from his query. "How did it work? You just wandered into their midst, looked the men over like you were shopping for shoes or something, and announced 'I'll take that one' once you made your decision?"

Overt though the criticism was, Berengheria missed it completely. "From their perspective, little changed. Each time the moons coupled, the people gathered their young men on the beach. They constructed an enclosure within the wall to contain them. I didn't take an offering every time, only when I desired a new companion. In those times, the youth I called was separated and lashed to the post as before. My pets collected him from the beach and brought him to me, just as they brought you."

"Here?" Daniel asked, indicating the cavern with a sweep of his eyes. "You've lived here all this time?"

"The accommodations on land were primitive. The ship may be useless for flying, but its power source is far from depleted. Even underwater it is infinitely more comfortable than one of the huts they offered." She haughtily flipped her hair over her shoulder, and Daniel was reminded of a particularly obnoxious teen he'd seen arguing with a peer at the mall.

"How are you able to survive underwater?" he wanted to know.

"Mine is a supremely adaptable people. At first, I relied on the ship's life support and my pets' ability to protect those they transport underwater, but as the years passed my body's systems became more and more acclimated to the new environment."

"No wonder the people here believed you were a goddess, living with the grindylow as well as commanding them. Do you ever leave your ship?"

"I have not done so for many years. Shortly after I landed on this planet, one of the natives guided me on a tour through the forest. I had hoped he was leading me to a great city buried somewhere in that oppressive mass of greenery, but all he showed me was a large ring of stone."

"The Stargate. Why didn't you use it to escape?"

Bereghinya's shoulders buckled, her royal facade undermined by bitterness. "So, it is a transportation device. I had never seen its like and, though the natives insisted that beings came and went through the circle, they did not know how it was done."

"Those beings were likely the Goa'uld, or their servants, the Jaffa.”

"Several years ago, I sensed a malicious presence. I feared that it was someone from my planet searching for me, so I sent my pets to investigate. They reported that there was an army herding the people into the forest. At the next appointed time there was no offering; they had all been taken."

Finding the pain of her loss too familiar, Daniel lowered his gaze. "The Goa'uld take humans and use them as slaves."

"How have you escaped them?" Bereghinya demanded.

"I haven't. Well, I mean I have, just not on this planet. Like you, I'm not originally from here."

"This is why you are so curious about the structures on the beach. I have seen you staring at the walls, seemingly entranced by what you see. A singe-minded level of concentration matched only when you are writing in your book."

Daniel's brow quivered in surprise. "My journal. I use it to record my thoughts and observations."

"Ah," Bereghinya said with unexpected comprehension. "I likewise have a... journal, did you call it?"

"You do?"

"Yes. It appealed to me, leaving evidence of my existence that would survive me. I had thought to utilize the recording device on which every ship's commander chronicles his travels, but it appears it has long ago ceased to function. It is a detestable device, but commonly used among my people for writing as well as reading. I much prefer writing by hand.”

“Me, too,” Daniel spontaneously confessed.

“Really? How lovely that we have something in common. Writing is an arcane form of communication where I come from, a method mostly reserved for archivists. I don't believe it is even taught any longer. The commander was apparently of an age to appreciate its beauty. Rather than replace the recorder when it malfunctioned, he kept his records in logbooks. I found several unused journals among some other books in a crate in the cargo hold. Have you been writing in your journal for many years?"   
  
"Nearly all my life." Daniel shrugged at her look of incredulity, regretting the gesture immediately. He shot out a hand, clutching desperately at the wall to keep himself from collapsing.

Clasping her hands together against her chest, like she was afraid he might reach out to grab one, Bereghinya observed, "You are unwell."

"Yeah," Daniel panted. "I think those talons your little pets are sporting might have some kind of poison on them."

"It is my pets’ sting which allowed you to survive the journey here. It is temporary, however. Do not attempt to escape; you can no longer breathe the water.”

“I’m having a hard enough time breathing air at the moment.”

Bereghinya pouted. “None of the others had this reaction."

Daniel squeezed his eyes closed. "Well, like I said, I'm not from here. Those 'others' were probably immune or maybe something in their diet helped counter the poison. Or maybe I'm just having an allergic reaction to their sting." His legs started to wobble, and Daniel carefully lowered himself to the floor, using the wall to slow his descent. Once he could feel the cold stone against his backside, he blinked up at his captor. "In any event, I think I might need medical help. My friends will know what to do."

Her features instantly hardening from concern to suspicion, Bereghinya said in a voice cold as death, "I cannot release you, Daniel, and you should not attempt to escape. The exit from this cavern is very deep underwater; without the intervention of my pets, you would have drowned when they brought you here."

Without warning, the mass of grindylow began to seethe in agitation. Someone set up a keening whine, which passed one to another until the cavern vibrated with the sound. Teeth pressed together, Daniel slapped his hands against his ears. "Why are they doing that?"

"It is an alarm. Your friends are coming this way." Bereghinya cut a severe look in his direction, and Daniel suspected she blamed him for the chaos. "They refuse to accept that you are lost to them."

An adrenaline surge countered his vertigo and Daniel shifted awkwardly to his knees. "They're never going to give up. They're trained warriors with very powerful weapons; they will kill every one of your pets. Then they'll come for you. Let me go now and I promise they won't harm anyone. We'll leave you in peace."

"Peace," Bereghinya snorted harshly, as though he'd just said the most ridiculous things she'd ever heard. "Alone for the rest of my life. I will go mad without a man to share my life, my bed."

Daniel's body chose that moment to flush hot again. Bereghinya pursed her mouth, the corners lifting in a gesture that bespoke anticipation. Clearly she had misread his fever for diffidence. Wishing he could think how he might use that to his advantage, Daniel groaned against a renewed assault by the grindylow poison.

"No, sweet Daniel," Bereghinya trilled above the din. "I would rather die than face such a bleak existence." She turned away from him, a sweep of her arm sending all but a few of her pets back into the pond. The rest clustered around Daniel, watching dispassionately as he toppled onto his side and drew his knees into his chest.

"I will convince your friends that you have chosen to stay," she said with confidence before slipping silently into the pool.

His body quaked as the heat dissipated and Daniel wrapped his arms around his legs, feeling as though it was the only way to keep himself from shaking apart. Resting his head against the damp stone, he watched the scant light grow dimmer as he gave in to the overwhelming urge to pass out.

~oOo~

Eyes fixed to the outcropping a few meters up the beach where they believed Daniel was being held captive, Jack sensed Carter's intermittent glimpses in his direction. She pitched forward slightly and opened her mouth, as though about to say something, then, thinking better of it, curled a lip in self-reproach, her shoulders drooping.

Without slowing his determined march, Jack grazed her with an irate glance. "What?"  
  
Startled by the query, Carter blurted her response. "Sir, shouldn't we request backup?"

The same thought had occurred to Jack—fleetingly. They were fairly sure they knew where Daniel was and Jack believed, once they pinpointed his exact location, his team could easily get him back from the little buggers that had taken him. There were still a few unknowns in his rescue plan, like what they'd do if they actually were required to dive any great distance to get to Daniel, but none of those questions were dominating his thoughts.

Protocol dictated that he at least check in with command before proceeding. But if Hammond ordered him to stand down or, God forbid, return to base to wait for an S and R team to assemble... well, Hammond might as well begin preparing the case against him for insubordination. There was no way in hell Jack was leaving Daniel behind.

_Not again._

"I'm not going anywhere," he said with grave deliberation. "You want to traipse the two hours back to the 'gate, Carter, be my guest." _I'll be damned if I'll give those mutant toads access to Daniel for even one more minute than absolutely necessary._

Hands tightening on his weapon, Jack lengthened his stride, outpacing Carter to give himself just a moment of solitude. In his mind's eye, bubbles welled up, like those from the filter of Daniel's fish tank. Incongruously, flames shot through the little gas globules, and a figure appeared at their center. A desperate cry filled his head—his name in an all too familiar voice, laced with fear and pain.

Jack cringed inwardly. _I suppose its only natural this situation would bring back Daniel's previous underwater kidnapping. Nem could even be one of those little frog guys on steroids._ As amusing as the observation was, Jack didn't crack a smile. He couldn't; not yet. He filed the comparison away for later use. He could get a rise out of Daniel with it, when they got him back.

Hearing Carter shuffle up beside him, Jack redirected his thoughts to the rescue mission. "So, you think that cut out you two saw in the side of this outcropping is an entrance?"

"Like I said, sir, it's just a guess. We only surveyed it from the beach. The indentation itself is about eight meters into the lake." She pointed it out him.

"If we find this... indentation doesn't get us inside, you think C4 might be an option?"

"I wouldn't try it without knowing exactly where in the structure Daniel's being held. We could set off the explosion right on top of him."

"Yeah," Jack grunted in concession. "I'm just running scenarios."

Nearing the ridge, Jack pulled up. Watching while Carter approached it, he looked the rock wall over with a critical eye. Based on Carter's known height of five foot nine, he estimated the height of the ridge at eight feet. Trailing his gaze along the rock until it disappeared beneath the churning water yielded an approximate length of twenty meters.

Jack walked along the edge of the ridge. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen: not a natural sweep of the land into the lake, but a seemingly independent outgrowth, like it had become detached from another location, drifted across the lake, and planted itself here.

"This is kinda odd, isn't it, the way this thing just sort of shoots up out of the sand so close to the water line?" he called over the crash of the water.

"Daniel and I were sharing theories about that—"

"I don't need the whole run down," Jack quickly said to deter a long explanation. "Just give me the most plausible one."

"Yes, sir," Carter returned without a hint of resentment. "We finally determined that this ridge is not solely the result of sedimentary action. There was likely some large object, a boat, maybe or a sizeable rock, embedded in the sand. Over the centuries, this near constant wave action has assembled the sand, which hardened around it to form this outcropping."

Jack pounded his fist against it. "Think it will bear our weight?"

"I... believe so, yes."

Her delivery seemed just a bit too hesitant, and Jack cocked an inquiring eyebrow at her.

Instantly, she dropped the other shoe. "Daniel walked across it to investigate the cavern."   
  
"Ah," Jack said. _Of course he did._ "Don't suppose he found out anything that might help us get in there."

"He didn't locate an entrance, if that's what you're asking."

"Yeah, that's what I'm asking," Jack grumbled. "Guess that means we're getting wet... again." He canted his head up the beach behind her. "Here comes Teal'c."

"O'Neill," Teal'c intoned by way of checking in. Planting the end of his staff weapon in the sand, he set his backpack, fat with the supplies Jack had requested, between them. His normally stoic features turned disturbingly hopeful. "Have you determined Daniel Jackson's location?"

"Not yet," Jack said, watching with regret as the words erased the rare emotion from Teal'c's face. "We were just discussing the best way to get in there. The most likely means is underwater."

"My symbiote affords me an enhanced ability to survive beneath the water's surface."

Carter’s eyes widened as her gaze dropped to Teal’c’s midsection. “It does? Sir, if that’s true, Teal’c could stay down much longer than either of us.”  
  
“Yeah, alright," Jack huffed, loathe to turn the point position in this rescue over to anyone else. Not that Teal'c would be any less diligent than Jack in his search for a way to get Daniel out. Daniel's safety was his responsibility, though, and Jack didn't abdicate that charge easily. "You should probably leave your staff weapon," Jack said, gesturing to the firearm in Teal’c’s right hand. “Chances are that entrance is a tight squeeze and if there are any corners…”  
  
"I am proficient with a zat’ni’katel.”

“Yes, you are.” Taking Teal’c’s shoulder in a supportive grip, Jack steered him towards the water, stopping at the point the waves began to lap at his boots. Sighting down his arm, Jack identified the area they believed might provide access to the interior of the ridge. "I know you can't see much, but that's why we need someone to go out there."

"Understood," Teal’c assured him, handing over his staff weapon.

Giving a decisive nod, confident Teal'c could carry out his mission, Jack took the staff. He’d turned to ask Carter for a flashlight from the pack, when the soft rumbling of his name and an iron grip on his arm brought his attention back to the lake. Barely registering Teal’c’s staff being ripped from his grip, he stared, open-mouthed, as the water along the outcropping seethed and bubbled, as if the lake had begun to boil.

Globe-shaped objects broke the surface, like dozens of yellow-green balls that had been trapped under the water were suddenly freed. As the shapes began to make their way towards them, recognition dawned.

"Aren't those the guys—"

"Who abducted Daniel Jackson. Indeed." Raising his staff weapon, Teal’c trained the business end on the center of the mob.

Bringing up his MP-5, Jack caught sight of his 2IC, who came to his side, weapon at the ready, as the first of the grindylow stumbled ashore. Canting his head just a bit, Jack took a moment to get a good look at the creatures.

He estimated their height at about half a meter, though it was difficult to tell for sure since they were all hunched over. Their bony bodies seemed ill-equipped to support their melon-sized heads, but, Jack surmised, their aquatic lifestyle probably made that less of a problem than it might be on good old terra firma. Their skin was translucent, the color of piss, and Jack thought he could just make out what he assumed were hearts beating in the center of their slightly concave chests. Long, skinny limbs terminated in webbed digits. While their feet were flat and flipper-like—making them worthy of the 'frogman' moniker Jack had attached to them—their hands were long-fingered and decidedly dexterous. Hands and feet alike were adorned with claws. Flippers planted in the sand, they pushed themselves upright, long hands dangling before them, and Jack was reminded of the show on meerkats Daniel had made him watch.

Returning his attention to their oversized heads, Jack flinched. The damn things were all eyes and teeth. Each sported a dangerous smile, like the grin of a guard dog promising to take your arm off if you moved the wrong way. Their absurdly oversized eyes blinked hollowly at him. Saturated by lake water, the eyes reflected the rising sun, and soon the continuous winking had Jack feeling like the focus of an especially vicious pack of paparazzi.

"Any clue what this is about?" Jack muttered quietly so as not to startle anyone.

Carter shifted slightly. "Suppose it's too much to hope they want to lead us to Daniel."

"Daniel is no longer your concern."

Snapping his gaze from the small amphibious lake dwellers assembled at his feet to the much taller, refined figure emerging from the water behind them, Jack masked his surprise with a half-smirk. _Where the hell did she come from?_ he wondered. To the newcomer, he snarled, "Oh, let me guess. You believe Daniel is now your concern. What is it with you women and your need to possess Daniel?"

Gliding effortlessly through the water towards them, the woman sent Jack a disapproving frown. "I am not ‘women.’ I am Bereghinya… and you are very unpleasant."

Jack pointed his weapon at her, not the least intimidated by her superior attitude. "Only when someone kidnaps one of my teammates."

"You were equally abusive to Daniel. Perhaps, Jack, that is why he has fled from you."

Jack felt the expression fall from his face. Recovering quickly, he stiffened his spine, giving no indication he'd heard her utter his name. "Daniel tell you that?"

"There was no need. Your snarled utterances carry quite effectively in this environment."

As Jack opened his mouth to fire off a retort, Carter took a step forward. "Sir, if I may," she said under her breath, then, without waiting for his permission, turned to the woman. "You know where Daniel is," she said, a statement, not a question.

The woman merely tilted her chin in the air. Her pale eyes glistened and a faint smile tugged the corners of her lips upward.

"Of course she does, Carter. She's the one who ordered his kidnapping."

"Daniel came to me willingly."

"Your little goons dragged him down to your lair!" Jack winced, finding the description a bit too much like one of Daniel's fairy tale scenarios. He gestured impatiently to the outcropping. "Or whatever you call it."

"My pets were assisting Daniel in his escape. He responded naturally to my call; I did not force him to come to me."

"Your call?" Carter echoed.

Squeezing off a final glare at Jack, the woman nodded at Carter. "I perceived Daniel's sadness. I, too, have been alone, isolated from contact with others of my kind. I have only my pets for company—"

"So you decided to snatch yourself an archaeologist to fill the void," Jack finished with characteristic sarcasm.

"As I have said, Daniel was not forced."

"And I'm saying, 'bullshit!' I saw the look on his face when these ugly little gingersnaps pulled him under. He wasn't responding to any call; he was terrified they were going to drown him."

"He might have drowned had he attempted to find me on his own. My pets provide those they ferry with the means to survive beneath the waves."

"Really?" Carter said, not unexpectedly.

Jack sneered at Carter to squash her scientific curiosity before turning the look on Daniel's captor. "He wouldn't have needed their help if you hadn't lured him into the water in the first place." _Lured._ The word resonated in his head until clarity rang like a gong. "It was all you," he realized. "His nightmares, his frantic attempts to get out into the lake. You've been messing with his head."

“I do not understand your meaning.”

“What? Messing with his head? I mean you used some sort of… siren voodoo or whatever you do with that ‘call’ of yours to make Daniel believe he wanted to be with you.”

“Daniel has a wife,” Carter tagged on. “He wouldn’t just abandon her to be with another woman.”

“Daniel Jackson is far too honorable a man to behave in such a manner.”

“Unless he was brainwashed,” Jack concluded, with a ‘gotcha’ smirk. “Thus proving my allegation that you’ve been messing with Danny’s mind.”

Clearly unimpressed, Bereghinya lifted her shoulders in a lazy shrug. "Your opinions are of no consequence.”

No way was Jack letting her off that easily. “And don’t think for a minute we’re buying that crap about this all being for Daniel’s benefit. You just want him for what he can give you. You don’t give a damn about his welfare.”

“And you do?”

Jack’s eyes blazed murderously. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“It was Daniel’s sense of isolation which attracted me to him. We are kindred spirits, he and I; both longing to be loved.”

“Daniel is loved,” Carter objected. “He has us, his friends.”

“Not to mention his wife!” Jack felt compelled to restate.

“You have done a poor job of showing Daniel your affection. He is unhappy. I can change that. He will remain with me."

Jack shot a look of exasperation at his teammates. “We’re back to this again.” He took a decisive step towards the woman, his foot splashing in the surf. "That just is **not** going to happen."

The water erupted in chaos, a piercing shriek playing backdrop to the tumultuous churning. All around them, frogmen flopped into the shallow water, seemingly thrown into fits as the waves washed around them. Cringing back from the resultant spray, Jack resisted the urge to crush his palms against his ears, temporary ringing being an acceptable tradeoff for maintaining his hold on his weapon.

As quickly as it had begun, the turmoil ended. Floating on their backs, the creatures shoved away from the shore, their large eyes blazing out from just above the froth. One by one they began ducking under the murky water, their sickly green skin immediately obscured by the gloom.

"No!" Jack scoured the waves for any sign of Daniel's kidnapper. "Her damn 'pets' were creating a distraction to cover her getaway." Snatching the strap of his MP-5 over his head, Jack thrust the weapon against Teal’c’s chest. "Okay," he growled, "I’m going to plan B."

~oOo~

Daniel levered his eyelids open the moment consciousness returned. The cavern was disturbingly quiet; the only sound he could discern was the lapping of the water in the pool. And the pounding of his heart, which seemed to have relocated to his head.

Pressing one palm to his throbbing temple, Daniel shoved the other against the floor and rolled onto his back. His head spun, but he found his stomach lurched less threateningly than before. Waiting for the vertigo to diminish, he peered into the darkness. His guards were no where in sight.

With no thought for where they might have gone, Daniel struggled to his feet. Bereghinya could return at any time. He had to take this opportunity to search for a way out. Using his grip on the wall to back up his wobbly legs, Daniel made his slow way to the corner from which Bereghinya had emerged.

He had no reason to trust Bereghinya's assertion that the pool offered no means of escape. In his current state, though, it was unlikely he could manage a dive of five meters let alone the depths to which she had claimed the water descended.

As he came around the turn in the rock that had concealed the entrance to Bereghinya's ship, Daniel considered the probability that the door had some sort of lock. When instead the barrier slid aside at his approach, he stumbled back in surprise. Squinting against the dull, but comparatively bright light of the ship's interior, Daniel called softly, "Hello?"

An echoing rendition of his query was the only reply, still Daniel waited on the threshold, breath held in check, listening for telltale sounds of occupants. Hearing nothing but the insistent whoosh of blood through his own head—more a feeling than a sound—he glanced over his shoulder. Wondering briefly what had happened to his appointed caretakers, he swept his gaze over the cavern one final time, before crossing into the ship.

The muted lighting blazed to near full sun brightness, and, with a small cry, Daniel slammed his eyes shut and turned away, lifting an arm to shield his face. The pressure in his head increased fourfold, setting up a distant ringing in his ears. Daniel moaned softly.

After a moment, the tension eased, and no longer fearful that his head might explode, Daniel cautiously lowered his arm. Pulling a calming breath, he slowly opened his eyes, relieved to find his comfort level unaffected by the increased illumination. His shoulders drooped with the release of pent up stress and, slightly unbalanced, Daniel slumped heavily against the wall. Nearly forgotten amongst his other discomforts, the grindylow puncture wounds reasserted their dominance, setting off a burning sting across his ribcage. Gritting his teeth, Daniel stiffened his spine and moved forward.

He recognized immediately that he was in the command center of the ship, the bridge. Multicolored crystals winked at him from a control panel on his left, enticing him to wander in that direction. He bent over the console, inquisitive fingers twitching over the buttons and switches there, responding to his inborn inquisitiveness.

"I can't believe after all it’s been through, this thing still works," he muttered to himself. As he straightened, something familiar caught his eye on the right, drawing his attention like a hummingbird to nectar. Text. Stimulated by the discovery, he sidestepped until the faintly glowing characters were directly in front of him.

He skimmed the words. "I know this script; it’s early Cyrillic. Bereghinya’s people must have originated from somewhere in Eastern Europe." Daniel smiled to himself. “Modern Russian is written using a refined version of the Cyrillic alphabet. This shouldn’t be too difficult to translate.” Perusing the lettering again, more closely this time to compensate for the lack of his glasses, Daniel sighed in frustration. Something niggled at the back of his mind, inhibiting his ability to fully concentrate on the task at hand.

"Yeah," he snorted sarcastically, "you're a prisoner. That would mess with anyone's focus." _You never had this problem when you were Nem's guest,_ came the quick reply.

"So, it's something else, then." Paying closer attention to the distraction, Daniel identified it as the disquiet he got right before an important event: a trade treaty or a brief on a translation needed by an SG team for their mission. It was the feeling he'd forgotten something.

"Great." Daniel huffed softly. "How am I supposed to remember something I've forgotten?" The question sounded decidedly Jack-like in his ear and, and Daniel grinned responsively.

As quickly as it had come, the grin faded. Jack. Bereghinya had gone to confront him. Them. His team. Daniel glanced upward, squinting at the dull grey metal comprising the hull of the ship. Would he be able to hear gunfire? Staff weapon blasts? Jack wasn't known for his diplomatic skills, and given Bereghinya's resolute intention to keep Daniel for herself, negotiation seemed out of the question. There would be no trade agreement, no treaty or contract, no...

"Writing," Daniel completed the thought out loud. His mouth tipped sideways, his grin half chagrin, half excitement. That's what he'd been missing. Bereghinya said she kept journals.

_You're supposed to be looking for a way out,_ Jack's voice growled in his head.

Daniel shrugged. "No reason I can't do both." Turning away from the console, he parked his butt on the edge while casting his gaze around the exposed areas of the ship. Mildly annoyed that Bereghinya hadn't just left the books lying around where he could easily find them, Daniel shifted his attention to the open doorway at the back of the bridge, and the narrow hallway extending beyond. He pushed off his seat and slowly lurched towards it.

Shading his eyes against an anticipated increase in illumination, he scowled at the ceiling when the hallway declined to light up for him as the other room had. Unless he came across a flashlight—assuming this race had such a thing—he’d have to be content with the light coming off the bridge.

It was enough to discern that a half dozen or so doors opened off either side of the hallway. Surveying the first three, Daniel found a bunk and what looked to be a toilet common to each. The rooms were identical, lacking any sign of individualization. _The crews' quarters,_ he surmised.

While the fourth had little in the way of personal effects—a piece of shiny metal fashioned into a handheld mirror, a gauzy shawl, and a comb made from bone lay side by side on a makeshift bedside table—it was obvious Bereghinya had appropriated this space for herself. Taking a quick glance back down the hall, Daniel slipped over the threshold.

The air was heavy in here, and Daniel found himself drawing increasingly deep breaths to fend off light-headedness. The small cubicle smelled faintly of sweat and sex, and Daniel had to shake loose an obtrusive image of his captor with one of her previous conquests. Suddenly wary of getting too close to the bed, Daniel cast an eye over the rumpled blankets.

Tearing his gaze away, he found his eyes immediately diverted to the underside of the cot. Several dark, rectangular objects stood out from the gray shadows. Books. His aversion to Bereghinya's love nest forgotten, Daniel bent and scooped up the find. One was a printed, bound volume, but the other…

_Her journal._

Turning back to the light streaming in from the hallway, he opened the diary to a random page. Like with the console, Daniel could not interpret every word, but he understood enough to fill in the blanks.

**_Like those before him, Tibor grows more defiant by the day, insisting I allow him to return to his kin. I do not understand this change. For years he has been content, leaping enthusiastically into our bed, eager to please me. Now he shirks his duty to me, spurning my advances until I am forced to take what I need from him._ **

Daniel gasped and a shudder of revulsion threatened to unbalance him. Rather than collapse on the floor, he reluctantly perched on the edge of the bed. He slammed the book shut and tucked it against his chest. Bending over, he panted the tainted air, balling his hand against the overwhelming urge to protectively cup his groin.  
  
She'd raped him. Oh, god, he knew what that was like. It had been less than a year since Hathor had effortlessly tossed him onto her VIP room bed and made him do things his mind had desperately screamed against. Powerless to prevent it, he'd contributed the genetic material she needed to reproduce. Except for Sam and Janet and their platoon of female combatants, he might have been living that nightmare over and over for the rest of his life.

Pulling one last deep, shuddering breath, Daniel sat upright. The book fell open in his lap, and he realized he'd unconsciously tucked a finger between the pages to save his place. Having no wish to learn more of the outrages perpetrated upon her young victim, Daniel flipped over a few pages.

**_Tibor is dead. I had no choice; he betrayed me. I discovered him in the hold, attempting to escape through the cargo bay door._ **

Escape. The word jumped off the page and, laying the journal aside, Daniel shot to his feet as though he’d been physically lifted. Unsteadied by the incautious movement, he slapped a hand against the wall, lowering his head to ride out the resultant vertigo.

Something glinted dully at him from beneath the shawl. Unable to help himself, he fingered the flimsy material aside. His features lifted with an incongruous smile. Jack’s knife. He’d been right—sort of. It wasn’t dryads that had made off with the weapon as he had suggested, but, assuming the grindylow were the culprits, Daniel could still make the case that Jack had been robbed by mythological beings.

He picked up the knife, thinking to stash it in a pocket. Except that he had no pockets. “Probably wouldn’t be advisable to tuck it in the waistband of my short,” he decided. With a less than contented sigh, he wrapped his hand around the hilt and staggered back into the hallway. Though it seemed unusually weighty—because of his weakened condition, he surmised—Daniel found comfort in carrying his friend’s blade. He could almost sense Jack at his side, watching out for him.

The cargo bay was most likely in the back of the ship. Shuffling into the hallway Daniel turned right and peered into the distant gloom; the light coming from behind him would only cover about ten paces.  
  
Drawing a fortifying breath, Daniel marched forward. Quickly enveloped by darkness, he slowed. Positioning the knife against his palm, he wrapped his thumb and forefinger around it. The remaining three fingers skimmed the wall, his free hand held before him to warn of any unseen obstacles. Taking to counting his steps as a means to distract himself from his unsettling surroundings, Daniel made his plodding way into the bowels of the vessel.

His fingertips brushed something and Daniel automatically curled his fingers away, hissing as his knuckles scraped against the roughened surface. He froze and, extending his hand again, flattened it against a cold, metal barrier. He let out a slow, calming breath. He’d reached his destination.

He squinted into the blackness. “Guess it was too much to ask that the grindylow’s sting would allow me to see in the dark, too.” Taking a step back, Daniel stiffed his shoulders as well as his resolve. “Okay,” he pep-talked, “the door’s here somewhere. I just have to find it.”

_I’ll have to go about his methodically,_ Daniel decided. A small grin blossomed at a mental image of Sam’s approving expression. Jack and Teal’c stepped in behind her, watching over her shoulder. While Teal’c was wearing his usual stoic expression, Jack gazed at Daniel over his nose, eyes narrowed slightly in impatience.

Buoyed by his teammate’s presence—even if it was only in his mind—Daniel began his search.

The wall on his right was only a sliding step away. Shifting in that direction, Daniel stowed the knife in the corner, a place he could easily return to if necessary. Weapon secured, he lifted his arms to shoulder height and pressed both hands to the wall in front of him. Turning slightly, he moved his hands away from each other sliding them over the metal, concentrating on any change in texture which might indicate an opening.

Finding nothing of note, he took a step to the left and repeated the process. Sweat beaded his forehead after a few passes, the lack of a visual perspective together with the absolute stillness of the air conspiring to give the space a closed-in feel.

Pain seared across his torso, and Daniel moaned. Dropping his right hand to his knee to support his upper body, he hung his head between his shoulders, eyes closed. The hallway spun around him, or so it seemed, and gulping against the ominous stirring of his stomach, he stumbled. Instinctively slapping the wall for support as his legs gave out; Daniel distantly registered a slight bulge in the surface beneath his palm. Curling up as he hit the floor, he threw his arm across his eyes, protecting them against the sudden burst of light.

His nose twitched against a rancid odor, and Daniel just managed to push himself at arm’s length from the floor as his stomach rebelled, spilling its meager contents onto the ship’s deck. Rolling away from the mess, he found himself on the other side of what had previously been a solid wall.

He lay on his back for a moment, willing his surroundings to still. Though the stench was less oppressive now that the door was open, Daniel caught large snatches of breath through his mouth, both to avoid smelling and to ease his nausea.

“Obviously, these doors have been closed for a long time,” Daniel observed. The odor was different from anything he’d known before but this wasn’t the first time he’d been smacked in the face with air long denied access to the outside world.  
  
Squinting at the wall just outside the doorway, he scowled at the switch, no bigger than a quarter, which had apparently opened the door. Why the hell would they make is so small? No wonder he’d missed it.

A shiver raced up his spine, the cold surface on which he rested leeching the heat from his body. Struggling to a sitting position, he swallowed. Instantly, his face screwed up. “God, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear Jack had stuffed his socks in my mouth.” Daniel glanced longingly over his shoulder. The only source of water he knew about was in the cavern, where this journey had begun. The distance was too great and his time too short to even consider going back. Bereghinya could return at any moment.

The reminder was enough to get him moving. Stretching out to retrieve Jack’s knife, he supported himself against the wall and pushed to his feet.

He took a long look around. The cargo hold was surprisingly familiar, just like any similar transport on Earth. Any transport that had had a less than successful landing.

Crates of various dimensions lay scattered around the room in a strangely arched pattern, as if a giant had mistaken them for dice and decided to try his luck. Amazingly, some of the crates were still stacked along the back wall and both sides of the room. Several of the containers had broken open, their contents spilled across the deck. Others, it appeared, had been forced open, their lids propped neatly against their sides. His inherent curiosity piqued, Daniel shuffled forward. Approaching cautiously, he peered over the side of the first opened box, moving impulsively closer when he caught sight of the contents.

“Books,” Daniel whispered, as though acknowledging the fact had transformed the enclosure into a library. “Bereghinya said there were books in the cargo hold.” Balancing the knife across the corner of the crate, he reached inside and pulled out the topmost volume. The cover was torn, from the crash of the vessel he guessed and not age as it seemed otherwise pristine. Bound in something resembling leather, the tome creaked as he opened it, like a door that had been too long unused.

“Cyrillic,” Daniel confirmed. Scanning through the pages, he determined the book was some sort of history, probably of Bereghinya’s home world. “At least if I do spend the rest of my life here, I’ll have something to do… I mean besides…”

He slammed the book closed and let it tumble back into the crate. As exciting as this discovery was, he was on a more urgent quest: the search for the back door and freedom.

Taking up the knife, he moved on, unable to resist a glance into the other boxes as he passed them. Several were filled with smaller containers. Some were opened, their contents scattered across the tops of their neighbors as though a wild animals had rifled through them.

Daniel’s nose wrinkled at the faint odor of spoiled grain. “Foodstuffs,” he deduced. “This must have been a supply ship.” An image of Jack popped into his head, wearing a familiar censorious smirk. “Which is completely irrelevant to your goal of getting out of here,” Daniel supplied for his team leader. “Keep your mind on the task at hand.”

He followed the line of crates, pausing here and there to lean on one and catch his breath. The grindylow poison wreaked havoc on his system, his body temperature intermittently soaring and plummeting with disturbing regularity now. Shaking off the symptoms and the lethargy that seemed intent on beating him down, Daniel pushed doggedly on, searching over and around the crates still stacked against the wall, hunting that elusive exit.

He’d completed about three-fourths of the circuit when, tagging on the heels of fatigue as she so often did of late, his nemesis Doubt took a shot at him.

_There’s no way out; you’re trapped here. How will you save your wife now?_

Daniel gritted his teeth. “I’m not finished yet,” he bit out defiantly. “There has to be a door here somewhere. Otherwise why would Bereghinya accuse Tibor of trying to escape?”

Stumbling in his haste to resume his quest, Daniel grazed his hip on the corner of an oblong box. With a mixture of anger and frustration, he shoved at the container, which slid away from him with unexpected ease. An ominous crack was all the warning he had before three crates stacked behind it tumbled his way. Daniel threw himself to the floor, the impact knocking his shaky breath from him, and instinctively draped his arms over his head. Cringing against the splintering crash too near his prone form for comfort, Daniel waited until the echoing aftermath rolled to a dead silence before peeking out to survey the damage.

Two things struck him at once: one) the odor which had compromised his digestive system was suddenly stronger; and, two) a stream of air stirred the stifling confines of the cargo bay.

“An opening!” Daniel gasped hopefully. Clambering to his feet, he picked his way through the debris of broken crates and spilled contents, staggering towards the source of the breeze.

A second layer of crates cut off his view of the back wall. Daniel eyed them warily. Though shorter than the other stack, the boxes teetered awkwardly, no more stable than those that had nearly flattened him. Surging to his toes, Daniel craned his neck, and found himself looking into a cavity, an empty space, void of storage containers.

Several strands of hair tickled across his cheek, and Daniel closed his eyes, taking just a moment to enjoy the cool gust of air. His eyes shot open, wide in panic, as putrefaction wafted on the wind. Carefully skirting the boxes still obscuring his way, Daniel peered into the gap.

Wrinkling his nose against the stench, Daniel winced at the sight that met him. “Tibor,” he muttered, for surely the skeletal remains secreted behind the crates belonged to Bereghinya’s latest conquest.

Covered in nothing more than a cloth across its hips, the body was crowded into a corner created by the back wall and a storage bin. Jaw hanging slack in a silent scream, the head lolled unnaturally to the side. One arm draped across his midsection, an empty fist closed over his chest.

“Like he was grasping for the knife she’d plunged into his heart,” Daniel found himself saying. “‘He tried to escape; I had no choice.’ That’s what Bereghinya wrote in her journal. She admitted she stabbed one lover because of a perceived betrayal. I don’t think it’s a stretch to guess that she probably killed this one too.”

Daniel shook his head. _Sad, but not the reason you’re here,_ he reminded himself. _You’re making a break for it, not gathering evidence for a murder trial._ Redirecting his attention to the stream of daylight erupting from the far side of Tibor’s mausoleum, Daniel slid past the small stack of crates and gingerly made his way around the corpse. Unable to resist a second, closer look, Daniel stopped, his eyes drawn to the dark square just visible through the ribcage.

_Another journal?_ Playing moth to the book’s flame, Daniel found himself stooping to retrieve it. He hesitated momentarily when his hand neared Tibor’s remains, loath to disturb them. Remembering Jack’s knife, he poked it into the book just deep enough to tease it from beneath the body.

Unaware he’d been holding his breath, he let it out in a whooshing gust and, falling back on his haunches, opened the journal. Like with the book he’d found in the bedroom, this one was filled with Cyrillic text, neatly scripted in Bereghinya’s hand. Taking no time to read, Daniel flipped through to the back. Nearing the end, his eye caught something which had him snatching the book open. Laying the tome on the floor, he furiously turned pages until he found what he was looking for. He stared in open amazement at his discovery.

“This is the language I found on the beach.” Fingering the block letters scribbled on the page beneath Bereghinya’s words, Daniel chuckled. “What do you know? I’ve found my Rosetta Stone.”

_Which isn’t going to matter for squat if you don’t get out of here,_ Jack’s voice snarled in his head.  
  
“Right.” Closing the journal, Daniel set it aside and pressed his hand against the deck, ready to push himself to his feet. Following the movement with his eyes, he froze as his sight fell on the corpse. The bones looked odd. Was that a product of this species? Wishing he still had his glasses, Daniel strained to clear his vision and moved closer. He’d come to within six inches when he jerked backward, gasping.

“My god. Those are teeth marks.” _The grindylow. Was he dead when they began to eat him?_

Needing no additional incentive to find a way out, Daniel stood, determinedly fighting off the vertigo that once again threatened to knock him back down. Eyes fixed on the source of outside light and air, he tottered towards it. His chest tightened, his breath short and harsh in his ears by the time he’d achieved his goal.

He frowned at the hatch. The tear in the doorway—which likely was a result of the crash landing and not anything Tibor had done—was no wider than his hand and only twice as long. Unlike with the door into the cargo bay, Daniel immediately located the control panel to open this exit. He slapped his hand against it, and sighed. He’d had little expectation that the door would open, still Daniel felt an unmistakable stab of disappointment. Quickly shaking it off, he took a step back and surveyed the damaged hull.

Cognizant of the potential for drawing the attention of Bereghinya and her minions instead of his friends, Daniel placed his mouth near the rent in the bulkhead, and shouted as loud as he could manage.

“Jack! Sam! Teal’c!” Angling his ear towards the opening, he held his breath and waited for a response. It was only then he heard the din of pounding water.

“The lake,” he groaned. “They’ll never hear me over that surf.”

He looked at the blade in his hand. Much sturdier than an ordinary hunting knife, still it seemed unlikely to survive an attempt to force the door open. He wasn’t about to chance it. Casting his gaze around wildly, Daniel searched for anything else he might use to widen the slit or, better yet, unlatch the door. There was nothing: no crowbar, no staff weapon, no hope.

“There’s only one way out of here.” Shuffling by Tibor’s body, he worked his way across the ruins of the cargo bay and through the command center. As he crossed the threshold into the cavern, he noted the water in the pool was bubbling. Stopping in his tracks, he entertained an inane memory of Janet forcing him into the whirlpool after he’d complained of a back ache.

The Jacuzzi hadn’t been filled with flesh-eating frog-men, though, and the thought fled immediately. Bobbing to the surface in twos and threes, they leered at him, their fang-filled mouths agape with predatory grins. As though on a silent signal, the group drifted apart, leaving an opening in the middle.

Instinctively, Daniel took a shuffling step backward as Bereghinya’s features coalesced from the murky depths. Far from the disturbingly satisfied expressions worn by her ‘pets,’ Bereghinya scowled, her brow drawn down so tight with anger Daniel marveled that it hadn’t folded in on itself.

“Your friends are decidedly obstinate,” she griped the moment her mouth cleared the water. “I have told them you wish to remain here, but they will not relent.” As though she tread the very air, Bereghinya rose from the pool.

Hand tightening on the knife he’d reflexively concealed behind his back, Daniel swept his gaze over the heads riding the wave of her departure from the pool. Quickly calculating the odds were against him getting past them even should he best Bereghinya, he met her eyes steadily. “That’s because they don’t believe you,” he said with forced calm. Cheering inside, he dare not let his pleasure show. “I told you they wouldn’t.”

Bereghinya smiled indulgently. “Their belief means nothing,” she decreed, her hand flapping the air as though the notion hung physically before her and she intended to disburse it. “As I have said, I have chosen you for life. You must accept the gift and enjoy it.”

“I don’t think so.”

All semblance of geniality bled from her face, leaving in its place a dangerous snarl. “Do not think, Daniel, that your friends’ stubbornness makes any difference. You have been chosen; any attempt to leave me would be a betrayal of my kindness. An action which I would not tolerate.”

"Is that what happened to your last conquest? He found out the gift was really a curse and tried to get away?"

“What do you know of it?” Bereghinya took several large menacing strides towards him and, despite the fact that his only means of escape lay before him, Daniel instinctively backed away. Coming fully into the command center, Bereghinya’s gaze slid from Daniel’s face to the wall. Her eyes widened with sudden realization. “You’ve entered the ship,” she said, indicating the open door with a tilt of her head.

It was pointless to argue so Daniel merely nodded. “And discovered all your secrets,” he returned pointedly. “There’s no way you’ll ever convince me I’m more than a prisoner. I won’t play the dutiful paramour. In fact, I’ll fight you every step of the way.”

“You cannot win.”

“Maybe not, but I guarantee you won’t enjoy yourself either. I can be very disagreeable when I have to be. Just ask Jack. You’ll spend all your time and energy just trying to keep me here; there’ll be no time for… other things. You may as well just let me go now.”  
  
Bereghinya chuckled, a sound that sent icy tendrils of foreboding up Daniel’s spine. Lifting her hand, she wiggled her slim fingers slightly like a sophisticated diner might do to signal a waiter. Behind her the pool began to seethe as grindylow splashed towards the sides. Gathering around her ankles, they stared at Daniel with dispassionate eyes.

“No, lovely Daniel,” Bereghinya crooned, advancing on him in that strange gliding gait. “You will not simply walk away. Your treachery has assured that.”

As though its owner wielded it instead of his best friend, Jack’s knife came forward at the threat inherent in her statement. “Stay back,” Daniel ordered.

Bereghinya’s hand fluttered dramatically, as though she were a magician getting ready to perform her most spectacular trick, before it disappeared beneath the long flimsy sleeve of her gown. Watching him expectantly, Bereghinya withdrew her hand.

Daniel groaned as a long thin dagger emerged from its shimmering scabbard. It winked at him, the harsh illumination of the command deck ricocheting from the polished blade. A sound reminiscent of a dozen cracking whips went up as grindylow fins slapped the deck, their awkward forward motion no doubt precipitated by the anticipation of his death.

Apprehensive though he was, Daniel was far from ready to give in. Firming his stance, he held Jack’s knife higher. “You don’t want to kill me,” he said to Bereghinya, his voice unwavering in spite of the dread squeezing his chest. “You’d end up alone again.”

She smiled at him, a distinctly patronizing expression. “That is no longer a certainty. As you have so helpfully disclosed, there is a means off this planet. A means to which your friends hold the secret.”

“They’ll never help you.”

“That remains to be seen.” Berghinya advanced. “What is certain is that you will never leave here alive.”

Gasping, Daniel flinched back from the blade glinting, menacing as Bereghinya’s sneer, a mere foot from him. So quickly he had no time to react, her arm swept to the side, cutting a furrow of pain across Daniel’s chest. She took another step in his direction, and Daniel retreated, stumbling backward against the ship’s command center console.

~oOo~

“Plan B?” Carter asked.

Pushing through the waves, Jack lunged forward. He flailed wildly in the surf, his hands instantly closing over what felt like two slimy twigs.

Fire erupted just below his wrist. “Ow! Damn it!” Defending itself against the perceived attack, one of the grindylow had managed to find a spot not protected by Jack’s glove or jacket. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Jack determinedly tightened his grip.

“Colonel!” Carter jogged into the surf.  
  
“Stay there!” Jack ordered. “These guys know how to get to Daniel… and they’re taking me with them.”

“Sir, you can’t. We don’t know anything about their ability to supply oxygen. What if it’s voluntary and they choose not to help you breathe?”

“That’s why Teal’c is sticking with Plan A.” He caught and held the Jaffa’s gaze. “You get Daniel out of there, no matter what. Don’t worry about me; get Daniel. Do you understand me?”

“I understand,” Teal’c returned.

With Carter’s continued protest resounding in his ears, Jack snatched a large gulp of air and threw himself into the lake. His knee slammed the bottom and he bit his lip against a curse, knowing he had no breath to waste on it. Pushing the pain aside, he began to kick as soon as his escorts surged forward.

After their initial objection, the gingersnaps offered surprisingly little resistance. As they ferried him deeper into the lake, though, it occurred to Jack that he might have given them exactly what they wanted—the means to get rid of him. Carter had been right, of course; there was no guarantee these little critters would accommodate his need for air without express consent from the woman who apparently controlled them.

It wasn’t long before the murk overwhelmed even the sun’s light, and Jack found himself clamping his lips against the impulse to breathe. Pulled downward with remarkable speed, he soon reached the point of no return: even if he’d wanted to abandon the rescue attempt, he’d never reach the surface in time to save his own life.

A boa constrictor wrapped itself around his upper body, or so it seemed. Wholly rejecting the sense of panic that wanted to overwhelm him, Jack focused on his goal. _If only I could see it,_ he griped internally. The ridge was nowhere in sight. Even his escorts were lost in the gloom.

Something slammed into his left shoulder. Inhaling a responsive hiss, Jack flinched, sure the reflex would be fatal. Instead of dark water, his lungs expanded with sweet, cool air. Another jolt knocked the breath from him. His mind screamed, _Let go of these damn frogs so you can defend yourself._ His heart quickly reminded him why he’d caught hold of the little amphibians in the first place: they could get him to Daniel.

He was bumped again, this time on the right hip. Instinctively, he brought up an elbow to ward off his would-be attacker. He groaned inwardly as the protective covering of his jacket was sheared open, exposing his arm to be flayed by a ragged surface.

_It’s the cavern wall_ , he realized with a mixture of irritation and relief. _This isn’t the opening Carter showed me, though. It’s too deep._

With no way to steer away from the rocky outcroppings on either side of him—he still couldn’t see a damn thing—Jack decided the best thing he could do was just keep his head out of the line of fire. The gingersnaps would get him around any obstacles. He just had to concentrate on staying directly between the slimy buggers.

He’d acquired another laceration and several nasty bruises by the time the blackness began resolving into gray. They swam ahead another thirty meters or so then took a distinctly vertical trajectory. Light cut through the darkness; they were headed for the surface.

_And none too soon,_ Jack griped. He hadn’t wanted to dwell, but the ‘air’ he’d been consuming had a short while ago taken on a metallic tang. He’d had a similar experience once when he’d stayed down longer than his scuba instructor had advised. He didn’t know how what the little green guys provided compared to compressed air, but he was pretty sure the bad taste augured the same result: he was running out of oxygen.

In the growing brightness Jack could finally discern the outline of the cavern walls. Like a lighthouse beacon to a floundering boat, the increased illumination spurred him on, calling him to safety. Jack released his hold on the grindylow and, kicking in what he inanely noted was an odd parody of his little green guides, swam fiercely upward.

He broke through, immediately pulling a hefty gulp of air. Blinking water from his eyes, he took a quick look around. There was nothing distinct about the place; it looked pretty much like every other underwater cavern he’d ever seen. Except for the fact that this one had its own light source.

Keeping his head low, Jack gently paddled towards the side of the pool. The water surrounding him began to bubble and Jack pulled up. Anticipating the arrival of his amphibious escorts, still he startled when they popped out of the water on either side of him. Ignoring Jack completely, they drifted quickly by, headed for the source of the light.

With no effort at all, the gingersnaps scampered up the three foot wall to a ledge above and disappeared. All Jack could see from his perspective was what appeared to be the ceiling of a very bright room. Presumably, that was where the frogmen went.

Breaststroking after them, Jack found himself beginning to pant. He felt slightly off-balance, but whether it was from the motion of the water in this small space or the fact that it smelled like his granddad’s lake the summer the fish had all mysteriously died, he took little time to contemplate. Shaking off the generally unwell feeling, he soon made it to the side of the pool. Having noted that the wall directly outside the room projected outward a bit, Jack reached for the ledge at that spot, and pulled himself up. Careful to stay out of the direct light, he rolled toward the wall. Taking just a moment to catch his breath, he scrambled to his feet and, pressing himself against the cavern wall, inched his way towards the room.

Low buzzing sounds were his first hopeful sign that he’d indeed found Daniel. It was a vibration he’d heard countless times before when Daniel’s neighbors had a disagreement. Someone in the next room was talking. Jack knew no one who talked more or better than Daniel.

Shuffling up to the curve in the wall that obscured the doorway, Jack chanced a peek around it. He couldn’t see Daniel or the crazy bitch from the beach, but at least two dozen little gingersnaps were milling about, shifting from foot to foot like a bunch of kids at a birthday party anticipating distribution of the cake. Canting his head, Jack trained his ear towards the room’s interior.

Though he couldn’t understand the words, Jack was sure one of the speakers was Daniel. He’d know that voice anywhere; he’d spent way too much time over the past year-and-a-half listening to it drone on and on. Something wasn’t right, though. While Daniel sounded irritated—a justifiable emotion if he was addressing his captor—he also sounded tired.

“Or sick,” Jack muttered to himself. An image of Daniel flashed through his mind, splashing in the lake, toothy frogman clinging to his neck. _I’ll bet it’s those damn gingersnaps. If one or two little pricks has got me feeling this peaked, I can only imagine how bad off Daniel is._

Wanting now to get a line of sight on his teammate, Jack edged forward. He froze, fearful he’d been spotted when the little amphibians began to move. Having held his breath, he let it out, realizing they were staggering forward. Fixated on what was occurring in the room, they appeared oblivious to Jack’s advance.

“They’ll never help you.”

Even while Jack silently cheered Daniel’s proclamation, icy fingers crept down his back, creeping past his spine to contract around his stomach. It might have been the same poison that was making him dizzy or it might have been the woman’s reply.

“That remains to be seen,” she sniffed. “What is certain is that you will never leave here alive.”

Adrenaline flooding him, washing away every vestige of infirmity, Jack pushed away from the wall. He turned into the light just in time to see Daniel fall back against a low panel. A line of red appeared across the front of his t-shirt, thin as a thread before it began to blossom and grow as though some scarlet-flowered vine had decided Daniel would make a suitable tree substitute. Daniel lurched to the side as his captor raised her arm over him.

“Shit!” Jack hissed, catching a glimpse of her dagger.

Flapping wildly, deadly amphibians skittered toward Daniel, who had managed to get by his kidnapper. Unable to change trajectory, Daniel stumbled into the throng. With a panicked cry, he went down, the crush of bodies and shock uniting to unbalance him. Left hand clutching his chest, Daniel slammed into the deck. His right arm was extended and something flew from his hand. Large and heavy, it skated with a loud clatter across the floor, coming to rest against Jack’s foot.

Eyes still on his friend, Jack bent and reached for his knife. Closing his hand around the hilt, he stood and snarled at the woman standing over Daniel again, dagger poised for the kill. “Barbie Ginger!”

Daniel’s captor looked at him, confusion then hatred molding her features. Gaze locked to hers, Jack raised his arm and let loose his weapon. The woman took a small step backward, as if someone had given her a gentle shove, and glanced down in curiosity at the knife protruding from her heart. Her mouth opened, as though she intended to scream, but no sound came out. Her dagger slid from her grasp and Daniel flinched back, the blade bouncing off the floor between his bare feet. She wobbled a bit, sending Daniel a scowl that looked strangely like disappointment, before she crashed to the floor.

All around her, her pets froze in place. As one they sent up that piercing shriek, and Jack slapped his hands over his ears. He leapt back, melding against the wall as, on a silent signal, they ran en masse for the pond, their howl trailing in their wake.

The plunk of bodies falling into water playing behind him, Jack jogged the short distance to Daniel. Breaths harsh and rapid, Daniel lay on his back, hand on his chest twisted in the bloody t-shirt. Using a foot to roll away the body of the woman who had caused his friend’s injury, Jack dropped to his knees at Daniel’s side.

“Easy.” Jack pressed a palm into the curve of Daniel’s shoulder, his fingers curling over in a supportive squeeze. He pushed down slightly to keep Daniel from rising.

Daniel’s eyes went unerringly to the split in Jack’s jacket. “You’ve hurt your arm.”

“It’s nothing,” Jack argued. It was just like Daniel to worry about everyone but himself. “Now, lie still so I can check you over.” Taking hold of Daniel’s fingers, he gently began to untangle them from the shirt. Breath hissing through gritted teeth, Daniel did as he was told, the only sign of protest a lip curled in anticipation of Jack’s intent to probe the wound.

Though his face screwed up at the thin incision just below Daniel’s breastbone, Jack diligently checked the cut for bleeding. Daniel flinched, gasping a string of curses until the exam was over.

“It’s not too deep,” Jack concluded. “The bleeding’s already stopped.”

Eyes squeezed together, Daniel nodded thanks as Jack rearranged the t-shirt. He pushed himself to his elbow, using the back of his hand to swipe at the perspiration beading his forehead. His eyes opened suddenly, and Daniel stared at Jack, a look of mild amusement tugging his mouth out of line.  
  
“Barbie Ginger?” he asked.

“What? I was close. Wasn’t I?”

Daniel snorted a chuckle that quickly turned into a weak cough.  
  
A bit put out that Daniel appeared to be laughing at him, Jack grumbled, “It got her attention,” even as he helped Daniel to sit up.

Pulling a few short, sharp gasps of air, Daniel gave him a contrite frown. “I’m sorry. You’re right; it was enough to distract her from killing me.”

“What the hell did you do to piss her off? Last we heard you two were in love or something.”

Daniel groaned. “Any attraction she claimed was on her part only. Seems she had this insatiable sexual appetite. She had the young men here servicing her at her whim.”

“What young men? We haven’t found any people.”

“According to Bereghinya, the Goa’uld took them all. She’s from another planet. She apparently crash landed here a few centuries ago after she was convicted of killing one of her lovers on her own home world. She used the grindylow to bring the men to her.”

“Like she did with you.”

Daniel shivered. “Right.”

Jack rubbed a hand over Daniel’s back, a source of heat and comfort. “Well, it looks like I owe you an apology, too. Guess it was one of your little myths that made off with my knife after all.” He canted his head towards the blade embedded in Bereghinya’s chest. Daniel followed the gesture with his eyes but otherwise declined to respond.

Looking away from his friend’s weary expression, Jack noted the panel of flashing lights. “This is her ship, huh?”

“Yeah. There are crew quarters through there, and a cargo bay.”

Following Daniel’s gesture to an open hatch, Jack squinted disapprovingly. “Took a little time to explore, did you?”

“I was looking for a way out,” Daniel insisted.

“Did you find one?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“There is a rear door and it’s above water level. It’s been compromised, probably during the crash, but I couldn’t get it open.”   
  
“C-4 will take care of it.”

“You have some on you?”

Jack patted himself down. “No.”  
  
Daniel opened his mouth, no doubt to deliver some snarky comment, Jack thought, but the words never came. Instead, Daniel’s eyes widened and he turned towards the entrance to the underground pool. Jack had heard it too, the sound of something disturbing the water. Pivoting on the balls of his feet, he pulled his sidearm, positioning himself between Daniel and the potential danger.

“The grindylow?” Daniel surmised in a whisper.

Shrugging, Jack took aim at the doorway, sighting much lower than was customary in these situations.

“Is that thing safe to fire?” Daniel hissed in his ear.

Tossing a harsh “Shh” over his shoulder, Jack caught sight of the knife resting against Daniel’s ankle. He snatched it up and pressed it into Daniel’s hand. “It probably won’t help much if they come at us all at once,” he admitted with an apologetic grimace.

A faint grating, as of two stones rubbing together, reached them from the outer room. Every muscle in Jack’s body tightened responsively, prepared to fight for his life, and for Daniel’s. Holding his breath, Jack swept his tongue across suddenly dry lips and, realigning his sight, slowly squeezed the Beretta’s trigger.

“O’Neill.”

Tension fled him in a gust of air, his muscles releasing to leave him feeling momentarily boneless.

“Teal’c,” Jack gasped, struggling to his feet as their Jaffa teammate filled the doorway. “I was afraid you weren’t going to make it.”

Teal’c holstered his zat. “I apologize for the delay. I was briefly disoriented when a swarm of grindylow swam headlong into my path.”

“Yeah, they went running out of here like headless chickens when I killed their master.” Jack aimed a grim smile at the lifeless body.

“Bereghinya said she had a psychic connection with them,” Daniel offered dreamily. Jack shifted his gaze to his archaeologist. Daniel stared at his captor as well, his eyes disconcertedly vacant. “It’s possible they felt her death. It must have been like having a limb ripped off.”

Sharing a look of unease with Teal’c, Jack quietly called, “Hey, you okay?”

Daniel blinked, an action which apparently broke the spell he seemed to have fallen under. Meeting Teal’c’s eyes then Jack’s, he wrenched a smile. “Yeah,” he said less than convincingly.

“It is good to see you, Daniel Jackson.”

“Thank you, Teal’c. I’m pleased to see you as well. Do you think you could help me up off the floor?”

Jack halted Teal’c’s advance with a raised finger. “Ah, you sure you’re ready for that?”

“Not really,” Daniel uncharacteristically confessed. “But if I don’t get up soon, you guys are going to have to carry me out of here.” He lifted his arms, an expectant look on his face, like a two year old waiting to be picked up.

With a grunt of concession, Jack stepped aside, and motioned Teal’c forward. Positioning himself on Daniel’s right, Jack took Daniel’s arm in what under different circumstances would be a traditional Jaffa greeting. Waiting just long enough for Teal’c to get a similar hold on Daniel’s left arm, Jack tugged upward.

A strained groan filled the compartment. Daniel listed a bit to Jack’s side, but Teal’c easily compensated for the drift. Drawing Daniel neatly to his feet, he tucked the younger man against his side, holding him in place with an arm around his back.

The world tilted a bit and, panting and sweaty, Jack realized the groan had come from him. He bent forward, hands supporting his upper body on his knees while he caught his breath.

“Are you unwell, O’Neill?”

“Just a little breathless. It’s probably the air in here.”

“I haven’t noticed a problem with the air,” Daniel piped up. “Although, my senses aren’t exactly reliable just now. The grindylow injected me with something that let me breath underwater, but it seems to have some very unpleasant side effects.”

“All the more reason we need to get you out of here and back to Fraizer. You said you know a way out?”

“Back through there.”

Dragging his gaze upward, Jack peeped at the doorway Daniel had indicated earlier. Even as he stood and took a step towards it, it seemed to slide a bit further away. Shaking off the disorientation, he determinedly focused on his destination and shuffled forward.

“I found your knife in there,” Daniel murmured as they passed a gaping doorway on their right.

Naturally, Jack glanced inside. The first thing that caught his eye was the book opened on the bed. “Got in a little light reading, too, by the looks of it.”

“It’s Bereghinya’s diary. You wouldn’t believe what I found out about her.”

“I met her, Daniel,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “Except for the glowing eyes and gravelly voice, she had all the attributes of a Goa’uld. Nothing she did would surprise me.”

He’d said it hoping to forestall any compunction Daniel might have had to dwell on Barbie Ginger’s secrets. Jack hadn’t lied; he could easily imagine what Daniel had found in her diary. All too well. Her eyes might not have gone all Goa’uld gold, but their imperious gleam had been every bit as rapacious.

“I’d like to take the journal with me.”

Jack groaned. “Our only goal at this moment is finding that back door.”

“The door’s not going anywhere, Jack. That journal is the record of someone from a previously unknown race. Maybe there’s something in there that’ll help us find her home planet. She didn’t seem all that favorably disposed towards the Goa’uld. What if her people are inclined to help us fight them? Teal’c, let me go a second.”

Daniel shoved against the Jaffa’s side. To his credit, Teal’c hefted a questioning brow, and waited until Jack gave him a single nod of permission before acceding to Daniel’s request. Journal tucked under his armpit—its slight weight seeming to drag his shoulders even lower—Daniel tendered a little smile of thanks as he rejoined his teammates in the corridor.

Jack motioned impatiently towards the back of the ship. “Let’s go.”

Waving off Teal’c’s offer of support, Daniel instead pressed his hand against the wall and moved out ahead.

Gingerly skirting the rows of uniformly toppled boxes, Jack craned his neck to inspect the contents of the open crates they passed. _Books, packages of food._ His nostrils twitched. _Ugh._ _Rotten food_. Except, the smell was getting worse the further they got from the open boxes.

They paused at a low stack of containers. Around and behind them lay scattered the detritus of another fallen pile of crates. Following Daniel around the upright boxes, Jack turned and surveyed the ruined ones. There was something odd about the pattern; they hadn’t fallen like the others.  
  
“Hey, Daniel.” Something caught his foot and Jack stumbled. The smell hit him full in the face, which screwed up in distaste when he discovered what had tripped him. “Whoa! What the hell is that?”

“His name was Tibor.”

There was something mournful in the delivery, and Jack surmised the cause of this young man’s death was one of those ‘unbelievable things’ Daniel had discovered about Barbie Ginger in her journal. “She killed him?”

“Eventually,” Daniel whispered.

_Killing him wasn’t the worse thing she did,_ Jack filled in. Maybe he should get Daniel to tell him what was in that journal after all.

Sinking awkwardly to his knees, Daniel shifted to his hip and reached for the corpse’s shoulder.

“Daniel?”

Mild irritation supplanted alarm as Daniel pulled a book similar to the one he’d brought with him into his lap. Jack shot a look at Teal’c, who merely canted a brow, before serenely making his way to the back of the compartment.

“I think Bereghinya was teaching Tibor how to read and write in her own language,” Daniel said to no one in particular. “She bemoaned the fact that handwriting is no longer favored in her society. I recognized her language as a derivative of Cyrillic. It might actually have been to my advantage as a linguist to spend more time with her. I might even have learned what part of Earth her ancestors came from.”

Jack scowled at Barbie Ginger’s dead lover. “Something tells me the trade-off wouldn’t have been worth it, whatever knowledge you gained.”

“No,” Daniel agreed into his chest. “And I do have this journal which should help me figure out those markings on the beach.”

“O’Neill.”

Brooding over Daniel’s bowed head a moment longer, Jack turned to Teal’c. “Whatcha got?” he inquired, crossing the room.

Teal’c backed away from the ship’s rear door. Dust motes whirled crazily in the light cutting through the tear in her side.

“This seal is compromised,” Teal’c reported. “I have surveyed the outside through this breach, but I do not recognize any of the terrain. I believe we are facing in the opposite direction from our campsite. I have attempted to open the door, however my strength is insufficient for the task.”

“Well,” Jack said cheerily, “don’t let it get you down. You may have been beaten by this half-meter thick steel door, but there’s not a wooden door on all of Earth that can stand against you. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”

“I feel no urge to sneeze, O’Neill.”

“No, Teal’c. What I meant was…” Jack realized suddenly he had no clear idea of the exact meaning of the phrase. “Never mind that now. Do you think a staff weapon will make a dent in this door?”

“Is not our goal to open the door?”

“Right,” Jack replied patiently. Guilt poked him in the gut. When was the last time he was this tolerant with Daniel’s questions? “Will a staff weapon do that?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Great. Think you’ll have any difficulty making it back to the beach?”

“I will not.”

“Okay, then. Go back and get your staff weapon. Shout a warning before you fire, though.”

Teal’c eyed him in something that Jack suspected passed as a ‘duh’ look among Jaffa. He inclined his head in agreement and made his way back across the cargo bay. He paused near Daniel, who sat propped up against the wall, his legs stretched out before him. One journal was opened across his lap, the other stowed beneath his legs.

“I shall return momentarily, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c vowed.

“Be careful, Teal’c,” Daniel said and resumed his reading.

Jack took a moment to inspect the terrain outside. If only Daniel had climbed down the other side of the outcropping when he performed his little daredevil act they might have known about the hole… no, that wasn’t fair. Jack could just as easily have checked for another opening himself. Why was he being so unreasonable?

_You fear for Daniel Jackson._

Leave it to Teal’c to cut to the heart of the matter. Jack was worried about Daniel, and how fucked up was it that that angst was what caused Jack to be such an ass to him.

It was a pattern that had emerged shortly after that field op in East Germany went FUBAR—the one the Game Keeper had oh, so helpfully brought back to him in vivid color. His CO at the time had ordered Jack into therapy. Not that it had done any good; the shrink kept telling him he had to discuss his feelings. That was something Jack O’Neill rarely did. Which was why he had returned home from the Abydos mission to an empty house.

Jack growled as much in discomfort as self-loathing.

Instantly, Daniel re-emerged from his book. “You okay?”  
  
His hand against the bulkhead the only think keeping him upright, Jack hobbled to Daniel and, back against the wall, slid down to sit beside him.

“Oh,” he puffed, “a little off.”

Daniel looked horrified. “You were stung by the grindylow, weren’t you? How many times?”

Turning back the cuff of his jacket, Jack presented his arm for inspection. Careful to avoid contact with the pinpricks, Daniel cradled Jack’s arm and peered myopically at the wounds.

“Looks like three,” Jack said. “But it was just the one toad. If I’d known those damn gingersnaps were poisonous…”

Daniel released Jack’s arm and reeled back, as though it had suddenly burst into flame. “What?”

“What?” Jack parroted, realizing suddenly he’d said too much. Maybe he could aggravate Daniel into distraction. “What what?”

“If you’d know they were poisonous, what?”

The jig was clearly up. Jack shrugged a bit sheepishly. “I wouldn’t have grabbed them?”

“You grabbed them?”

“Well, Barbie Ginger—”

“Bereghinya.”

“Whatever. She said that the gingersnaps had the means to let you breath underwater. I remembered they stuck you with those sharp little nails. I thought maybe that was how they did it, how they supplied oxygen. I couldn’t think of another possibility, anyway.”

An incongruous grin touched Daniel’s lips. “So,” he said a bit too smugly for Jack’s liking, “what you’re saying is, you had a hypothesis and you tested it. Like any good scientist.”

“No, I had a hunch and I acted on it. Like a good team leader.”

The amusement dropped from Daniel’s face. “I know you hate scientists.”

“I don’t hate scientists,” Jack said less then convincingly if Daniel’s dubious brow was any indication. “Yeah, okay I hate scientists,” he admitted. “But I make exceptions for my friends.”

The doubtful look remained. “We’re still friends, then?”

“Why would you even ask me that?” Jack found himself growling, angry that such a question would enter Daniel’s mind. “Or, for that matter, why would you ask Carter if I want you off the team?"

"She told you?"

"Come on. You didn't expect her to keep something like that a secret."

"No, I guess not."

"So?" Jack prompted.

Daniel shifted his gaze from Jack’s face to a place just over his shoulder. His eyes wavered slowly back and forth, and Jack suspected he was looking for a way out of this conversation.

“Working together has never been easy,” he said at length. “Our philosophies are just too disparate.”

“I’ll admit it’s a struggle sometimes to find common ground,” Jack allowed.

“I’ve been a member of SG-1 for a year and a half now. I had hoped to find a rhythm with you guys long before now, but it still seems I make a misstep on almost every mission. Like getting myself shot on Apophis’s ship.”

“That was my fault, Daniel, not yours. I should never have put you in a position to be shot.”

“But it was my fault that I became a hostage to the Ashrak and that I was nearly choked to death in Hadante.”

“Okay, the Ashrak thing? That was a clear case of wrong place, wrong time. It could have happened to anyone. As for the other… you’re a civilian. No one expects you to be cognizant of every threat.”  
  
Daniel snorted a laugh, but it was not a happy sound. “Right. Like love sick princesses hustling sarcophagus fixes? You can’t say that one wasn’t my fault. You would never have let her addict you like that.”

Jack sighed. “Yeah, probably not. I’ll give you that one. With the caveat that you did it for the right reasons; you really believed it was the only way to get her cooperation.”

“You could have died. You and Sam and Teal’c.”

“But we didn’t. We made it back and you were the one who got us out of there.”

Daniel’s head bobbed faintly, but there was nothing like conviction in his features.

“I requested you back on the team,” Jack reminded him. “Asked Hammond to green light your return trip to Shyla’s planet. That’s how much I trusted… I **trust** you.”

Daniel smiled, his tired eyes brightening. “Thank you, Jack. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.”

“Well, it doesn’t mean I won’t still be an ass sometimes. I guarantee you’ll do something to irritate me…”

The smile faltered, and Daniel shuttered his eyes, too late to hide his disconcertment.

_Nice, O’Neill. This is not about him._ “No,” Jack backpedalled, “what I meant to say was I’m not exactly patient or understanding or…”

Daniel nodded, his smile returning in a grim parody of its former self.

_Damn it, I’m going to have to go there._

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” Jack said quickly, wanting that particular Bandaid ripped off in one pull. “I don’t mean to bark at you, I just… okay, I’ll admit it, these little mishaps of yours scare the hell out of me, and I don’t deal well with that kind of stuff.” On a roll now, Jack couldn’t have stopped himself if his and Daniel’s lives both depended on it. “I’m prone to attack the source of my fear. It makes no sense but I can’t seem to help myself.”

“Actually, it makes perfect sense.”

“It does? How do you figure?”

“You’re our team leader. It’s your job to make sure we’re all okay. When one of us messes that up, it frustrates you. And we all know what happens when you’re frustrated.”

“I turn into an ogre,” Jack conceded.

“Well, not quite that bad,” Daniel protested with a grin. “Ordinarily, I don’t take it personally. I’m not your only target. You even snarled at Teal’c when he rejected your order to run from certain death on Cartago.”

“I might have rethought that if he hadn’t been behind bars at the time,” Jack quipped.

Again, Daniel snorted a laugh, a sweet note filled with genuine mirth.

Jack couldn’t help but grin. He’d managed to lift Daniel’s mood. Too bad it couldn’t last.

“Ordinarily?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“You said ‘ordinarily,’ you don’t take my grumbling personally.”

“Oh. Did I?”

“Look, Daniel, I know you’ve had a rough time of it lately. That’s why Hammond and I arranged this little vacation.”

“I suspected as much.”

“Sorry it hasn’t turned out so well.”

“It’s not been all bad. I found a new language to study.”

“And got kidnapped by another alien. On my watch.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Jack.” Daniel sighed. Closing the journal, he ran his hands along the outer edges then began poking distractedly at the decorative inlay on the cover. His gaze slid from the book to Jack’s knees. Twice his lips puckered, his mouth poised to speak, but nothing came out.

Jack waited, patient and calm. Clearly, Daniel had something on his mind. He’d share when he was ready. It wasn’t like they were going anywhere until Teal’c turned up to let them out.

His composure didn’t last long. Jack hadn’t equivocated; he was not a patient man. Growling internally, he glared at the large toe of his left foot which had begun twitching. He tensed, surreptitiously he hoped, and groaned internally. _Come on, Daniel. I don’t know how much longer I can just sit here—_

“I’d forgotten how much I miss my wife.”

The words came so softly, Jack’s mental rant nearly obscured them.

“We’ll get her back,” Jack automatically replied.

Daniel nodded, accepting the vow at face value. “It’s been so long… I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’d begun to doubt it was possible.”

The breath caught in Jack’s throat. Never—except during his withdrawal from that damn sarcophagus—had Daniel ever expressed anything but certainty that he’d rescue Sha’re from her Goa’uld captor.

“Then there she was, on Abydos. Sha’re, not Amaunet. I wasn’t ready for that. I know you’ve read the reports, know I refused to believe it really was my wife I was seeing.”

“Yeah.”

“I have no one to blame but myself. I wasted so much time.” Pounding a fist against the book, Daniel growled, as much in sorrow, Jack suspected as in self-recrimination. “I should just have taken her back to the SGC. Why didn’t I just do that?” He sniffled and swiped angrily at the tears staining his face. “When did I become so used to thinking of her as Amaunet’s host that I failed to see her as Sha’re?”

Jack shrugged, a casual gesture designed to counteract Daniel’s mounting agitation. “You said it yourself, Daniel. You weren’t expecting to see your wife. Write it off as shock and put it behind you.”

“I won’t stop looking for Sha’re.”

“There’s something we can agree on,” Jack said.

Daniel’s look of satisfaction lasted all of five seconds.

“Bereghinya said she could sense my misery.”

“Well, that’s… creepy.”

“She said that’s why she called to me. She…” He cleared his throat. “She said she wanted to easy my pain.”

“And you fought her. See, you’re not as far gone as you thought.”

“I guess not. I did wonder, when I heard someone calling from the lake, if I was losing my mind.”

“Occupational hazard,” Jack commiserated on a moan. Wriggling his shoulders against the wall, he crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. “I wonder the same thing at least once a day.”

~oOo~

Thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose, Daniel gently closed the journal and laid it aside. Reading without his glasses was definitely not helping his headache. He glanced at Jack, who had slumped down to a nearly supine position. If Daniel didn’t know better, he’d believe Jack had fallen asleep.

But Daniel did know Jack. Though it seemed they were no longer in danger from Bereghinya and her pets, Daniel knew Jack would not rest easy until they’d gotten out of this ship and back to the SGC. Daniel smiled. It felt good to be that familiar with another person, to know their habits, their thoughts that intimately.

So how could he have considered, for even an instant, that Jack wasn’t content with Daniel’s presence on SG-1? _Because you’ve been looking at everything through your despondency over your failure to save Sha’re. Bereghinya was right; you were miserable. That’s why you were so vulnerable to her siren song._

Jack kicked his left foot and snorted, drawing Daniel’s attention again.

_But, the thing of it is, you aren’t alone. You have your team. They are your family. Okay, it’s vastly different from the kind of love your wife gives—Jack’s way of showing love seems to be to grumble at you constantly—but it is genuine._

_And it’s enough. At least for now._

Daniel sighed contentedly.

Cracking an eye open, Jack muttered, “You okay?”

“Fine.” Daniel nodded, reinforcing the claim in his own mind. “I think I just realized your ulterior motive for snarling all those orders at me.”

His other eye opened, both of them narrowing in suspicion. “It’s to keep you safe, Daniel.”

“Right. Like when you kept me from taking my watch last night.”

“That was as much for our protection as yours. The state you were in you’d probably have fallen asleep in the middle of your watch.”

“I think that particular order saved my life.”

With a groan, Jack pushed himself off the floor and to a sitting position. “I’m probably going to regret this, but… how so?”

“I’ve been reading these journals. Bereghinya had set her sights on me. If I had taken my watch that night, I might have disappeared and you guys would have had no idea where I’d gone. I’m guessing it wouldn’t have occurred to you that one of my mythological beings was responsible for my disappearance.”

“It wouldn’t have been my first thought, no,” Jack agreed. “But, we wouldn’t have just given up, Daniel. We’d have searched everywhere for you.”

“I know that, Jack.”

The backs of his eyes began to prickle and Daniel dropped his gaze from his friend’s, fearful that prolonging the contact would bring the tears to the surface. His gaze fell on the journals.

“You’re going to let me take these back with me, right?”

“You sure you want to know what she’s been up to here all these years?”

“There’s more here than just the record of her conquests. This is what I do, Jack. I learn about other cultures and translate new languages. These journals will give me the opportunity to do both.”

Hesitating only a moment to eye the journals with distaste, Jack relented. “Yeah, okay.”

“Thank you. I don’t know if you noticed on the way in here, but there are boxes of books in the cargo hold—”

“Don’t push it,” Jack warned.

Daniel smiled serenely, the gruffness of the response unexpectedly lifting his spirits. There was something so natural about it, normal. It had been some time since Daniel had felt normal.

Jack slouched against the wall again and turned towards the back door, watching for Teal’c’s return. He peered at Daniel over his shoulder. “Get some rest. I’ll take first watch.”

Mirroring Jack’s slumped posture, Daniel sighed. Finally, he had a hope of getting some real rest. Jack had his back. 


End file.
